This year's FJP highlights some of the developments on this blog in 2013. Africa continues to enjoy increasing interest and as online access is facilitated through faster connection points so are the divergent views in Africa on IP. We wish to thank our readers and contributors for their continued support and, in particular Jeremy's IPKAT for promoting the efforts of this blog.
A few stats:
Afro-IP has now enjoyed over half a million hits, has an email subscriber base nearing 800 and readership through RSS feed exceeding 100. It is promoted on Twitter though @afroip and enjoys a membership on Linkedin of 553. In 2013 there were around 250 posts with a peak interest in September exceeding 25000 hits for the month.
Some of the highlights:
- Additions of Caroline, Isaac, Tony and Chijioke to the blogging team in 2013 have provide greater depth, variety, divergence of views and enriched our content..
- Guest posts from David Cochrane, Tracy Rengecas and Denise Nicholson on Africa's IP Forum hosted by South Africa's DTI were very popular, such was the interest in the event.
- RSA's draft national IP Policy and the notes published by various bloggers (including the views of retired Judge Louis Harms and copyright activist Graeme Gilfillan) are continuing to enjoy traffic. The policy is expected to set the tone, not only for RSA but for the continent.
- Kingsley's brief sabbatical has not dampened the interest in his tiring tour of Africa's IP Registries and Caroline's continuing analysis of IP Policies in Africa is expected to peak interest over 2014.
- Landmark Supreme Court of Appeal decision in Grandmark (guest posts from Jeremy Speres) on designs for spare parts together with the analysis of the Pepkor/Adidas decision were decision highlights for South Africa. In Uganda, Tony's analysis of MTN's fight with the Ugandan Performing Rights Society received great interest as did the activity around this post from Nigeria, IPLAN v IP Registry in Nigeria.
- The Africa focus of Managing Intellectual Property's 2014 Patent Forum in London received much attention over recent Chairman of Adams & Adams Dario Tanziani's presentation. Kingsley will be covering the event this year and secured Afro-IP a sponsor role for his efforts.
- Uganda's new Industrial Property Act, Libya's Registry concerns and a Tunisia domain name update have all been highlights of readership interest together with Isaac's "Diary of a patent lawyer in Kenya".
- And in December, three Leos Caroline, Isaac and Aurelia (who travelled several time zones from California) covered the Open Air Conference in Cape Town, with a cocktail - no doubt!
Afro Leo
