Intellectual property rights

"A national IPR policy to protect indigenous knowledge and traditional medicine  is paramount but a bill that was tabled in parliament to that effect is taking too long to be enacted allowing Kenyans with indigenous knowledge continue to suffer losses to foreigners"

 By Khalwale James

Kenya is facing high losses of intellectual knowledge to foreigners out of lack of awareness by inventors. Many inventions have also been put underground as institutions and individual inventors fail to recognize the importance of their intellectual works.

Kenya industrial research and development Institute (KIRDI) intellectual property rights director Ms Rose Mboya yesterday also said that Kenyan researchers do not understand the importance of applying for intellectual property rights (IPR) which has made then lose benefits of research findings and inventions.       

Ms Mboya pointed out that most Kenyans had therefore opened way for foreigners to take advantage and sign patents on local inventions in their names leading to a continued loss of monetary benefits and other rewards. 

She said that KIRDI has received about 70,000 trade mark applications 50% of which are local small and micro enterprises adding that applications for patents had been so negligible and that Universities were doing poorly in application intellectual property rights.

"Many Kenyan researchers apply for copyrights and trademarks not patents. This however doesn't mean that they don't invent but they are just unaware of their inventions," she said during a presentation.
        
By 2004, only Moi university, Kenya medical research institute, KEMRI,  International livestock research institute, ILRI and Kenya agricultural research institute, KARI had an IPR policy according to a research by Ogada et al.         

Although patents can be granted on any invention that is proved not to have been in existence before, some of them cannot be allowed by any government.        

The IPR director said that new methods of treating a patient, doing business or performing mathematical calculations cannot qualify for patenting because they can lead to inconveniences to many people.        

The researchers were however reluctant to welcome the fact that all intellectual rights are owned by the employer in the event that the inventor is an employee of the institution and used its resources significantly including time unless a written agreement prior to employment saying otherwise had been signed. But whichever the case, the inventor gets an equitable share on benefits. 
       
Researchers and lecturers of Maseno University expressed for the need of a national IPR policy to enable economic, scientific and technological growth apart from just protecting inventors against infringement.
       
The lecturers also blamed the government for being less aggressive on intellectual property rights making institutions to come up with their own policies that were inventor unfriendly.      

"That is why our Kyondo was lost to the Japanese. Our country has no policy completely," remarked the university dons professor Job Jondiko.       

According to professor Jondiko, a national IPR policy to protect indigenous knowledge and traditional medicine  is paramount but was worried that a bill that was tabled in parliament to that effect was taking too long to be enacted allowing Kenyans with indigenous knowledge continue to suffer losses to foreigners.     

He said that Japanese visitors had enticed Kenyan women who eventually surrendered all skills about the Kyondo to them. He indicated that Japanese inventors had already patented their kyondo but the Kenyan one was not despite coming on the market earlier.      

Local people with indigenous knowledge and skills had also been left behind with people in fear of undertaking risky investigations. Whereas research finding aid the economy a great deal in making strategic planning, the government may not be in readiness to support it.     

The executive director of the center for research and technology development (RESTECH) Professor Wellington Otieno said that research leads to socioeconomic development and pointed out that Japan and Taiwan among others lead in investments in intellectual property rights in the world and that other countries should emulate.      

He said the Kenyan land is just 20% arable and could not be dependent for economic growth in comparison with the importance of science and technology. He appealed to banking institutions to see patents and copyrights as alternatives to land title deeds and physical property which are mainly used as collaterals.       

With intellectual property rights policy, different stakeholders conflicting interests following an invention which include coverage of IP policy rights, ownership of IPR, cases of disclosure or leakage of the innovation, marketing and monetary benefits, distribution of income can be solved amicably. It will also promote science, technology and progress.