Marion Wambugu
23 April 2008
Nairobi — The Government will enforce exclusive rights of ownership to the Kikoi trademark.
The Kenya Industrial Property Institute (Kipi) Managing Director, Prof James Odek, said the Kikoi would be registered as a protected trademark under the National Museums of Kenya.
No individual or company will be allowed to patent the Kikoi.
The Kipi boss said the move was meant to protect locally-made artefacts that are in the public domain and cannot be patented by an individual.
However, he cautioned that for the Kikoi to warrant a patent and be internationally recognised as a copy-righted material, it should be a new invention that is industrially applicable.
Odek said that for the last decade, developing countries had lagged behind in developing its industries because of few innovations.
"Kenya and other developing countries lose billions of shillings annually to foreigners who register locally made artefacts as their own," he warned.
Two years ago, an attempt by the British Kikoy Company UK Ltd to register Kikoi, which is a traditional Kenyan fabric, as its trademark failed.
A UK development charity and law firm, Watson Burton, which logged an objection to the plan, stopped the foreign company's efforts to claim ownership to the Kikoi.
Kikoy Company UK Ltd was given until March 7 to comply with its application to register Kikoi as its trademark, but it did not, leaving the UK Intellectual Property office with no option but to decline to register the product.
If the UK Kikoy Company Ltd succeeded in its bid, the firm would have stopped anyone from marketing or selling Kikoi anywhere on the globe using the name.
The Kikoi case comes two years after Kenya lost its famous Kiondo brand, which was registered in Japan in 2006.
Kenya and 15 other African countries have nominated Odek for the post of Director-General in the next month's session of the World Intellectual Property Organization committee.
The three-day international Wipo session will run from May 13 to 14 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Besides authoring several articles on intellectual property, Odek has spearheaded different world committees on intellectual property.
Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula said Odek is qualified to steer Wipo to tackle challenges of international property rights.
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