Today we review Tanzania, the home of Mount Kilimanjaro. Last year, this blog was impressed to find that both the copyright and intellectual property (IP) offices have websites of their own. This is still the same on review. Readers may remember (here and here) that, a few months ago, Tanzania hosted a series of important meetings on the role of IP policies in fostering innovation, science and technology in Africa. Since Tanzania is rallying others in Africa to embrace IP, it may well also join a few by upgrading its IP office's website to one with a searchable database.
IP news across the continent
Protecting agricultural products using geographical indications (GI) can benefit women and the rural population across developing countries (especially in Africa) is the message from the conference reported here by IP-Watch. Readers may also remember that a memorandum of understanding on GIs co-operation between the European Commission and ARIPO was signed last year. In that post, this blog raised the concern that Europe already has a large stockpile of GIs which need global protection while African countries have relatively few.
