Events

By Victor Nzomo In the midst of two decades of TRIPS and three decades of openness, more than 400 delegates from over 50 countries converged...

Researchers from the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network have been awarded $2.5 million CAD through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Partnership Grants program...

Solutions to some of society’s most important challenges require the right regulatory environment to drive innovation. Examples include pioneering models for access to educational...

Researchers from the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network have been awarded almost CAD 750,000 for a new three-year research project, Catalyzing AI’s Potential in Africa...

By Jeremy Baarbé (Picture: courtesy of Drawnalism) Open data has the potential to end global hunger. Farmers, government ministers, NGOs, and private firms gathered to collaborate...

By Outlwile Maselwanyane  The first gathering for Africa Open Science & Hardware (AfricaOSH) was hosted by Kumasi Hive innovation hub, Kumasi, Ghana, on April 13-15...

Is intellectual property (IP) gender neutral? No. Neither is the dominant discourse on innovation. Recognizing this bias is the first step toward remedying it.

The WIPO-IGC recently commenced the next installment of its deliberations for a text-based instrument that focuses on the protection of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs), pursuant to its mandate. There are two scheduled forums on TCEs beginning Feb 27-March 3 and to be completed in June 2017, which will round off the Committee’s work for the 2016-17 biennium.

The Advancement of Training and Research for Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Conference provides a yearly opportunity for international experts and other academics in the field of intellectual property (IP) to come together and exchange current research. The set-up of ATRIP’s conference enables for ease of networking with similar speakers separated into common sessions. Tana Pistorius, ATRIP President, and her team of organizers, did a superb job in ensuring a diversity of, yet connection between, sessions. Sessions covered a range of topics from new ideas for leveraging traditional knowledge (or “innovation knowledge” as Susy Frankel stated), to plant breeder’s rights, to diversity, art and culture in IP and innovation.

In October 2010, Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, recorded a rap song titled: "Do You Want Another Rap?" as part of his re-election campaign to capture the imagination of young voters. The song was a huge success and may have played a part in his reelection. When Museveni applied for a copyright registration of the song, however, members of the Ankole community filed an objection stating that the song was derived from Ankole folklore. While the Registrar of Copyrights in Uganda eventually allowed Museveni's copyright application for registration, this case triggered Dr. Anthony Conrad K. Kakooza's interest in the area of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) and whether TCEs should be recognized within the domain of intellectual property (IP) law.