A to Z of African official IP websites no.20: Gabon

Afro-IP's A-to-Z series of visits to the official IP websites of African states reaches episode 20 with the arrival of Afro Leo's special agent Kingsley Egbuonu to Gabon.  This is what Kingsley finds there:

Overview

Gabon is a member of the OAPI and a contracting party to a number of international agreements on intellectual property; these include: the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention and the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization.

 Copyright Office

• The National Agency for the Promotion of Arts and Culture (ANPAC) is the competent office responsible for copyright and related rights in Gabon.
• Currently, this office has no web presence.

 Industrial Property Office(s)

• The Center of Industrial Property of Gabon (CEPIG) is responsible for the administration of intellectual property rights in Gabon.
• The official website for this office is http://www.cepig.net/  and the language is French.
• Relatively, CEPIG’s website is informative and functioning; however, there is still much work to be done to bring it up to a reasonable standard.

 NB: The CEPIG’s patents and trade marks database redirects you to Esp@cenet (France).

 Social media presence

None

 Conclusion

Unlike some in the OAPI club, Gabon has at least made an attempt to maintain the presence of its intellectual property office online. Perhaps, this could be the result of its link and/or co-operation with the French Intellectual Property Office, Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle (INPI). This itself raises the question whether IP Offices in developed countries can play a meaningful role in the developing ones?

Kingsley tweets as @IPinAfrica