The property rights of talented children

Ramarni Wilfred is the smartest boy in the world. His IQ is higher than Albert Einstein’s and Bill Gates. There are many minors whose IQ levels are higher than adults and there are innovations and inventions that have been child-generated.

The education system in Kenya has changed and there has been the introduction of the new Competent Based Curriculum.

Many education systems and indeed schools support innovativeness from a very early age. We are therefore likely to witness the rise of child innovators and inventors.

At 16 years, George Nissen innovated the trampoline. Meanwhile a blind boy Louis Braille struck by blindness aged three came up with the braille system to help him read.

There are many child entertainers like musicians, athletes and actors worldwide. This article highlights the legal rights of such children and innovation and talent management issues for children. This is because under Kenyan law, a child’s legal capacity is limited. For example, he has no capacity to enter into binding contracts and also has no capacity to file suits in his own name.

Generally, children can be issued with intellectual property rights. This means that a child singer for example can get intellectual property rights over their works. However, it is not enough to just own intellectual property rights, it is also important to be able to exploit those rights for maximum benefits.

Under general contract law, a child has no capacity to enter into contracts. This means that a child would not be able to enter into binding contracts for the exploitation of their intellectual property. For example, a child cannot sign with a record label in his own name because he lacks capacity to contract. A child cannot sign licence agreements for royalties neither can he enter into any funding agreements for intellectual property as he lacks contractual capacity.

A child is furthermore limited in enforcing his intellectual property rights. Enforcement may require some sort of litigation action for orders stopping the illegal exploitation of intellectual property or for compensatory damages. A child has no capacity to file a lawsuit as the same can only be done by their guardian usually their parents or other court recognised guardians.

As such innovation and talent management for minors is required. Commercialisation of intellectual property rights and enforcement of intellectual property rights for minors is slightly different due to these limitations.

As a parent or guardian it is important to be involved in innovation management for your children. The same is applicable for schools especially those with innovation based subjects.

My recommendation would be to appoint an innovation and talent manager if you can afford it. If you cannot afford it then you could represent your child as his agent.

As a school or a parent it is good to keep a record of the ideas and concepts that children may come up with. It might surprise you that some of those concepts are actually very viable concepts for example the trampoline.

It would be important to work with technical experts to build on your child’s concept to make it a viable one.

Once it is built up to minimum intellectual property rights threshold, then intellectual property registrations can be pursued.

When it comes to commercialisation of the rights and to enable contractual exploitation of the rights, then the intellectual property rights ought to be assigned to the guardian as trustee. It is the guardian who will then enter into any contractual arrangements as an agent of the child.

Any enforcement of intellectual property rights is done by guardian as trustee for the child.