An editorial from IPPMedia reveals that Industry, Trade and Marketing minister Mary Nagu has a ready list of three institutions in Tanzania she says are equipped with facilities which, if used effectively, could help inventors and other intellectual property stakeholders benefit more from their works. These are the Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (Brela), the Copyright Society of Tanzania (Cosota) and the national Commission for Science and Technology (Costech). The legal mechanisms include the 1987 Patents Act, the 1986 Trade and Service Marks Act, the 1999 Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, and the 1994 Fair Trade Practices Act, the last providing for the activities of the Fair Competition Commission. However, research has also shown that (not unlike most other places in Africa) "there is such a pervasive lack of public awareness on the need to observe intellectual property laws that many people see nothing wrong in freely copying other people`s works."
