[Emblem of the Republic of Mozambique]
Republic of Mozambique
COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STRATEGY
2008 - 2018
Approved at the XXIIIrd Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers
of 28 August 2007
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CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 4
2. BACKGROUND ....................................................................................................................... 7
3. OVERVIEW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN MOZAMBIQUE .................................. 9
3.1. Brief historical review…. ........................................................................................................ 9
3.2. Legal framework……. .......................................................................................................... 10
3.2.1. Concerning copyright and related rights …………........................................................... 10
3.2.2. Concerning industrial property rights …………................................................................ 10
3.3. Institutional framework ......................................................................................................... 12
3.3.1. General remarks ................................................................................................................. 12
3.3.2. Concerning copyright …………......................................................................................... 12
3.3.3. Concerning industrial property rights …………................................................................ 12
4. IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY…………….......................................... 14
4.1. Overall importance ............................................................................................................... 14
4.2. Particular economic importance of intellectual property ………......................................... 15
5. VISION AND GOALS ........................................................................................................... 17
5.1. Vision ................................................................................................................................... 17
5.2. Goals ..................................................................................................................................... 17
6. STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGIC AREAS .................................................. 19
6.1. Dissemination of intellectual property .................................................................................. 19
6.2. Education and intellectual property ...................................................................................... 20
6.3. Science and technology research .......................................................................................... 21
6.3.1. Raise awareness among researchers and research institutions of the importance of intellectual property in promoting the fruits of their work .......................................................... 23
6.3.2. Develop policies and programs on intellectual property in universities and research institutes ....................................................................................................................................... 23
6.3.3. Introduce incentive programs to combat or reduce the loss of scientific researchers, innovators and creators to other countries or sectors ................................................................... 24
6.3.4. Introduce programs to encourage Mozambican scientists in the diaspora to create synergies with Mozambican scientists working in Mozambique, for the scientific and technological development of the country ......................................................................................................... 25
6.3.5. Provide support and scientific and technical assistance for innovators ............................. 25
6.3.6. Promote the use of patent information and technological information ………….…….... 26
6.4. Innovation and industrial competitiveness .......................................................................... 28
6.4.1. Promoting the strategic use of intellectual property by economic agents ………………. 30
6.4.2. Add value to Mozambican production .............................................................................. 30
6.4.3. Prioritize and incentivize local technical solutions …....................................................... 31
6.4.4. Encourage the development of districts as a basis for incorporating intellectual property into local products …………………........................................................................................... 32
6.4.5. Stimulate the strategic use of intellectual property by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a way of encouraging competitiveness and innovation .............................................. 33
6.5. Traditional knowledge and biodiversity ……....................................................................... 34
6.5.1. Disseminate and raise awareness of the intellectual property system among traditional knowledge holders ...................................................................................................................... 38
6.5.2. Establish an effective legal framework for promoting and protecting genetic resources and traditional knowledge …….......................................................................................................... 39
6.5.3. Promote the acquisition and safeguarding of intellectual property rights by local communities ............................................................................................................................... 40
6.6.3. Promote research on and the identification, stocktaking, industrialization, exploitation and marketing of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.
Draw up and implement a National Research and Innovation Agenda for the sustainable use of Mozambique’s genetic biodiversity resources and associated traditional knowledge ................. 40
6.5.4. Promote, monitor and control the exploitation of traditional knowledge in Mozambique ... 41
6.6 Creativity and the development of the cultural industry ........................................................ 42
6.6.1. Raise awareness of the intellectual property system among all sectors of society ............ 44
6.6.2. Encourage creativity among writers and performers ......................................................... 45
6.6.3. Strengthen and expand the collective management system for copyright and related rights .... 45
6.6.4. Develop and promote Mozambique’s cultural industry ..................................................... 47
6.7 Manage the intellectual property system ............................................................................... 48
6.7.1. Create inter-institutional mechanisms for coordinating and harmonizing policies and legislation on IP ........................................................................................................................... 49
6.7.2. Provide institutional capacity-building and training for staff in intellectual property management institutes ................................................................................................................. 49
6.7.3. Adapt legal and coordination mechanisms so that they will respond effectively to actions to combat infringement and piracy .............................................................................................. 50
6.7.4. Reinforce the protection of intellectual property rights .................................................... 51
6.7.5. Ensure the financial sustainability of the system .............................................................. 52
ANNEX I: Glossary .................................................................................................................... 54
ANNEX II: Intellectual property action plan .............................................................................. 57
Strategic use of intellectual property by economic agents .......................................................... 67
Effective legal framework for promoting and safeguarding genetic resources and traditional knowledge .................................................................................................................................... 74
Incentives and support for the development of artistic creation .................................................. 78
Strategic Goal 20 .......................................................................................................................... 79
Extend the collective management system to the whole country ................................................ 79
Mechanisms to promote the cultural industry and safeguard the rights of creators .................... 80
Inter-institutional mechanisms to coordinate and harmonize policies and legislation on intellectual property ..................................................................................................................... 81
Intellectual property management institutes with greater capacity and better-trained staff ........ 82
Legal and coordination mechanisms suitable for responding effectively to actions to combat infringement and piracy ............................................................................................................... 83
Stepping up the safeguarding industrial property rights .............................................................. 84
1. INTRODUCTION
With globalization, and our current information society, the appreciation and promotion of creativity, innovation and competitiveness are vital to progress. Global dynamics have already highlighted the crucial importance of intellectual property (IP) in achieving this goal – the intellectual property system being a cross-cutting area that focuses on the appreciation of human ideas, thereby promoting the competitiveness, progress and development of nations.
Mindful of this, the Government of Mozambique is introducing a basic legal and institutional framework for the regulation and administration of intellectual property, while the various bodies with responsibility in the matter have carried out a wide range of actions in this area.
Mozambique has not yet, however, come up with a common vision to inspire this framework, and this has led to some problems in harmonizing the sector.
As the country needs to be equipped with this fundamental tool for injecting dynamism into the intellectual property system, the Government of Mozambique has included the approval of an Intellectual Property Strategy as one of the goals in its five-year plan.
The Intellectual Property Strategy represents the vision that the government and others active in the system – such as the intellectual property management institutes, scientific research institutes, universities, innovators, rights holders and their representative bodies, economic agents and civil society in general – have for Mozambique, and the mechanism best suited to serving the country’s interests in terms of its economic, social, technological, scientific and cultural development.
The Intellectual Property Strategy takes into consideration the main national, regional and international instruments guiding Mozambique’s development, such as Agenda 2025, the Expanded Program for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty (PARPA), the Government’s Five-Year Plan, the Millennium Development Goals, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the various policies and strategies of the relevant sectors in the sphere of intellectual property, in particular the Policy on Science and Technology, the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, the Industrial Policy and Strategy, the
Rural Development Strategy, the Policy on Traditional Medicine, the Cultural Policy, and the Strategic Plan on Education and Culture.
Agenda 2025 defines “Education, Science and Technology as vehicles for improving the knowledge of the population and raising the quality of human resources”. In addition, this important document suggests that “scientific research and development must give priority to matters that directly meet the need for solutions to the problems facing the country, such as, inter alia, disease and the production of drought-resistant seeds.
Point 223 of the PARPA recommends as follows: “for Science and Technology (S&T) to play a strategic role, a fully developed national S&T system needs to be established. Such a system would include, for example, policy guidelines and strategies for public and private institutions that generate knowledge (i.e., scientific research), that transform knowledge into products, services and solutions (i.e., the results of innovation), that develop human resources (for example, the education sector), that direct and coordinate the system (i.e., Ministry of Science and Technology) and also the roles, relationships and links between the players within the S&S system which must be set up and properly maintained so that it will function as it needs to”.
Mozambique’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy states that “fair access to Science and Technology is the constitutional right of all Mozambicans, irrespective of their geographical location. We will therefore improve our mechanisms for disseminating science and technology, the fruits of scientific research and technology transfer” and “... knowledge is the primary resource for production in Mozambique and the key to reducing poverty is the application of knowledge”. To attain this objective, the Strategy stipulates that an appropriate economic and institutional regime must be set up, to provide a suitable incentive scheme for the creation, adaptation, dissemination and use of new and existing knowledge.
As a guiding , in drawing up this strategy the method used was that of a logical framework based on identifying first the main problems and setting strategic goals for achieving the objectives defined. For each objective defined, specific aims and actions were established, which need to be implemented in order to attain these objectives.
To this end, consultations were held at the provincial and national level, involving a variety of State institutions, local communities, scientific research institutes, universities, artists, economic agents and civil society in general.
These consultations consisted in workshops and work meetings aimed at: Canvassing the views of the abovementioned agents on relevant matters that must underpin the strategy, in particular constraints, opportunities and challenges; Pooling ideas on how to implement the strategy effectively; and Collecting information for drafting a framework that reflects the diagnosis of the current situation.
In addition, a study was conducted on the current situation of intellectual property and current levels of knowledge and use, with support from the World Intellectual property Organization. The findings of the study were important for diagnosing the situation of intellectual property in Mozambique and helped identify the problems deserving more attention in the actions to be decided on and carried out in the future.
2. BACKGROUND
The Intellectual Property Strategy fits in with the efforts being made by the Government of Mozambique to stimulate Research and Development (R&D), the industrialization of our country, cultural creativity, an appreciation of local resources and local creativity and, in this context, the establishment of a legal and institutional framework increasingly designed to stimulate and consolidate the strengthening of IP in Mozambique.
These efforts are the concrete result of the commitment given by the Mozambican State which, in the Constitution of the Republic, enshrined rules and principles on the right to creativity and to the protection of property created by the mind – rules and principles that were then embodied in a range of legal instruments establishing the legal regime governing the grant and protection of copyright and related rights, on the one hand, and industrial property, on the other, together with accession to the principal regional and international legal instruments on IP.
In the context of these efforts, and mindful of the fact that IP constitutes one of the most important supports for research and development (R&D) activities likely to encourage the innovation necessary for the competitiveness of enterprises, the government – reaffirming its commitment to stimulate creativity and protect the fruits of this creativity using mechanisms to ensure the allocation of rights to exclusive enjoyment and the punishment of unfair competition, including piracy and infringement – intends to consolidate the existing institutional framework.
Conscious, too, that the creation of these mechanisms is not in itself a guarantee of the establishment of an efficient system, the government recommends the adoption of an IP strategy that, in line with the country’s needs and priorities and the resources available, is designed to produce the best solutions for development and, above all, for fighting absolute poverty.
With this in mind, the Government of Mozambique has already taken a series of initiatives designed to produce a legal and institutional framework and has undertaken a series of concrete actions with a view to establishing and developing the intellectual property system.
Over recent years, the government has endeavored to lay the foundations for an intellectual property system in the country, consisting essentially of the following:
a) The creation of a national legal and institutional framework;
b) Accession to the main international instruments relating to intellectual property; and
c) Accession to the main regional and international organizations active in this sphere.
This, then, is the background to the Intellectual Property Strategy, a document setting guidelines for the actions to be undertaken in order to set up an intellectual property system as a tool for stimulating progress in Mozambique.
3. OVERVIEW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN MOZAMBIQUE
3.1. Brief historical summary
The legal and institutional framework of the IP system was established in Mozambique during the colonial era. As a result, the system for administering it was centralized in what was then the capital, so the whole process of granting IP rights and protection was handled in Portugal, in compliance with the legislation in force at that time. 1