The East African Community (EAC) is a regional bloc comprised of six partner states while the EU is an European regional bloc comprised of a number of European Unions.
There has been a lot of joint political and development initiatives by the two blocs and the two are in the process of signing an economic partnership agreement which should further strengthen the ties.
When it comes to intellectual property within the EAC, the EU model has a few laws and institutions which the EAC can borrow from. The EAC currently has no sound law on intellectual property and neither does it have any institutional framework.
Any regional initiatives on intellectual property are done by means of collaborations between the state agencies of each country.
Lack of a proper institutional and legal framework means the intellectual property laws in the region are weak. The EAC Common Market protocol has provided that the partner states need to have in place legislation on intellectual property.
The first thing the EAC would need is a policy and law on intellectual property, because currently there is none. This makes it difficult to protect intellectual property rights across the region, unless one resorts to other international mechanisms of protection such as through the ARIPO.
The EU has a number of institutions which this region could consider in order to spur protection of intellectual property. One such institution is the EU Innovation Agency.
It is charged with promoting innovation through the training of entrepreneurs, financing them and creation of awareness on intellectual property. Some of the regional partner states do have national innovation agencies which perform a similar role to the EU one.
But a strong regional institution is required or alternatively, a strong collaboration between the regional national institutions would do a lot to spur growth of intellectual property.
Awareness of intellectual property rights has been a contributing factor to the low numbers in intellectual property law protection.
The EU has its regional EU intellectual property office which amongst other things is charged with registration of the EU mark.
Is it time for an EAC IP office and EAC mark? A regional IP office would enable registrants of partner states to protect their mark throughout the whole region with only one filing.
Currently it is possible to protect some intellectual property rights through a single filing in Harare through ARIPO offices. However, the catch is that one cannot register all forms of IP regionally through ARIPO as not all countries provide an enabling legislation.
This therefore makes a strong argument for the EAC regional office. What about the regional mark? This is quite in line with integration goals espoused in the EAC Treaty.
Passing new legislation or formation of these institutions is not as easy as it sounds. There are a number of political factors that may feature, for example, which country would house the institution, staffing and financial resources.
Intellectual property rights do not seem to be a high priority for this region that is facing a number of issues such as politics, it has faced famine and drought before.
However with strong commitment from the partner states it is possible. The EAC and Common Market Protocol provide for this.
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