Being a text of Presentation titled ADVOCACY & ACTIVISM IN OUR ENGINEERING DNA Being a Presentation by HR Engr. Otis Anyaeji KtSGG FAEng, Obi Onowu II n’Okija (Traditional Head of Ubahu-Okija), 30th President, The Nigerian Society of Engineers at 2022 October Lecture. Made as Part of the Collection Themed “WISDOM OF THE NIGERIAN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS On the Occasion of NSE OCTOBER LECTURE On October 7th, 2022
Continued from Part 1 and part 2 and Part 3 Part 4
The Society was invited to comment on the proposals for the Reform of Industrial Property Law. Our point of departure was that NSE had in the Memorandum submitted to the Consultative Assembly on the Reform of Company Law in August 1988, recommended, inter alia, the establishment of a Design Council to promote Nigerian design, and also protect registered designs/inventions by administering patents, copyrights, and trademarks laws. It was then recommended that the Council could be located within the National Office of Industrial Property, or constituted as an independent statutory body. We saw these recommendations mutatis mutandis tallying with the proposals on Industrial Property Law administration put forward by the Nigerian Law Reform Commission.
Comparatively, it was noted that while the developed countries view some of the intellectual property rights as mechanisms for encouraging the dissemination of information, or instrument for the management of cultural processes, the developing countries which mostly must support cultural and scientific materials in developing their intellectual property right system ought to address policy objectives for promoting indigenous technological and innovative activities realizing that economic growth depends on a few talented people, supported by organisations capable of amassing and managing necessary complementary resources, who are able to extend limits of human understanding.
6.1 THE INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SYSTEM
NLRC was reminded that the international system for protecting intellectual property is rigidly composed of interlocking conventions that provide a permanent legal framework. That the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention, the Madrid and Lisbon Agreements, and the Rome and Geneva Conventions laying down standards for the protection of intellectual property rights are administered centrally by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. And then we advised Nigeria to follow this model and have one office that can centrally administer the affairs on trademarks, patents, copyrights, designs, utility models, and other protective forms governing intellectual property.
6.2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE NIGERIAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SYSTEM
The Society advised that there are two main separable aspects of intellectual property system that should be kept separate in the organisation of intellectual property protection viz –
• Setting of local standards and overseeing of local and international standards for protection of intellectual rights bordering on the administration of the Paris, Berne, Rome and Geneva Conventions, and Madrid and Lisbon Agreements should be seen as a science and technology based assignment. This should be the concern of NIPO.
• Work on identification and examination of trade problems relating to intellectual property rights, including trade in counterfeit goods; addressing provisions of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT) that are relevant; collection of information from organisations having responsibilities in the field of intellectual property rights. This aspect is a trade assignment and we recommended that responsibility for this should be domiciled in the Ministry with responsibility for trade.
6.3 GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED REFORM OF INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY LAW
Our overview of the then proposed Decree revealed it was to cover Patents, Utility Model Certificates, Designs, Trademarks, Registration of Industrial Property Contracts with a view to providing protection for INDUSTRIAL as well as ARTISTIC creations. We therefore advised that the title of “Industrial Property Law” was inappropriate in the above situation, and recommended the title of the decree be changed to “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DECREE”.
And also recommended that the Copyrights Decree 1988 be fused with the proposed Intellectual Property Decree so that the whole field of industrial and artistic property should come under one administration.
6.4 SUPERVISING MINISTRY
Bearing in mind that the first intellectual property rights were granted as patents, which ab initio were associated with technological development, we demanded that the intellectual property rights system must be seen as primarily a science and technology practice using the tools of law, trade and commerce as supporting accessories.
6.5 REGISTRAR-GENERAL, REGISTRARS
We referred to our introductory remarks that policy objectives for our intellectual property rights system should be for promoting indigenous technological and innovative activities … taking account of the close association of technology, with democratic stability as technological achievements are expected to provide the physical means of achieving the democratic objectives of political, social and economic equality. And then we confirmed that the activities of the proposed Intellectual Property Office are more technological than any other thing. Thus we agreed that a break had to be made from the past in the sense that the Registrar-General, of the IPO and his Registrars have to be drawn from the apostles of technology – to wit Engineers and Applied Scientists.
The major benefit from this we saw as government’s efforts at acceleration of the rate of industrial development in the country would become apparent in a programme of inducement to greater technological creativity and innovation, rather than the scenario of lawyers directing industrial development which to inventors or innovative persons would portray government’s intentions and efforts in this direction as programme of threats against bad behaviour.
In consideration of these issues the Society then recommended that,
• The Registrar-General be a Registered Engineer of not less than 12 years standing with experience in Intellectual Property Practice.
• The Registrar of Patents be a Registered Engineer of not less than 10 years standing with suitable experience in Intellectual Property Practice. He should be in charge of Patents and Utility Models Certificates.
• The Registrar of Design should be a Registered Engineer of not less than 10 years standing with suitable experience in Intellectual Property Practice. He should be in charge of,
– Product Design
(Engineering based, furniture and craft based products)
– Engineering Design
– (Basic & Detailed-systems)
– Fashion and Textile Design
– Inscape Design
– Graphic Design
• Registrar of Trademarks should be an applied Scientist of not less than 10 years standing with suitable experience in intellectual property practice. He should be responsible for protecting generic marks, descriptive marks, suggestive marks, fanciful marks, and arbitrary marks, service marks, trade dress.
• The Registrar of Industrial Property Transfers should be a Registered Engineer of not less than 10 years standing with relevant experience in Industrial property practice. He should be responsible for registration of registrable industrial property transfers.
These various Registries are still flung and scattered to various Ministries.
• Patents & Designs Registry is in the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment.
• Trademarks Registry is also in FMITI
• Copyrights Registry is a Commission under the Federal Ministry of Justice
• Industrial Property Transfers Registry operates as National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), under the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology.
• An Engineer was CEO of NOTAP for eight years from 2007, but not before then, or since after then.
to be continued
ADVOCACY & ACTIVISM IN OUR ENGINEERING DNA : NATIONAL BUILDING CODE (6)