The report talks excitedly about the prospects of a connected Africa, but makes no mention of intellectual property rights at all. Afro Leo adds that, if Ethiopia and other African countries want to attract Information Communication Technology (ICT) investment, they might start by making sure that their own intellectual property offices are accessible online, so that prospective exporters of technology and investors in African digital technologies can discover more easily what sort of legal protection exists for their investments and how it can be obtained. Anyone who has been following Kingsley Egbuonu's A to Z of intellectual property offices in Africa cannot fail to be disappointed in the fact that investment in patent and trade mark office websites has been so shamefully neglected, even though foreign filings of IP rights are a good way of attracting investment into any country.
