Intellectual property policy

Abstract

Kyambogo University is one of the nine public universities established to provide higher education in Uganda. The University was created as a merger of three former institutions of Institute of Teacher Education, Kyambogo (ITEK), Uganda Polytechnic, Kyambogo (UPK) and Uganda National Institute of Special Education (UNISE) by Act of parliament instrument No. 37 of 2003. The strategic direction of the university as embodied in its strategic plan 2020/21-2024/2025 is anchored on five (5) strategic focus areas namely, 1) teaching and learning, 2) research, innovations and knowledge production, 3) physical infrastructure, facilities and information and communication technology (ICT) development, 4) institutional development, and 5) strategic marketing. Therefore, in pursuit of its vision, the university is engaged in intellectual inquiry of creating both tangible and intangible assets geared to solving societal problems and bettering humanity in general. Intellectual Property (IP) is intangible assets arising from the outcome of human creativity, innovations, inventions, incubations and entrepreneurship. Exclusive rights are granted in respect of each IP in relation to certain defined categories of industrial, copyright, scientific and cultural creativity. Accordingly, Intellectual Property has become recognised as a consequence of international agreements, creating a more or less internationally harmonised legal regime that seeks to secure investment, technology transfer for innovation and the commercial exploitation of the products of innovations over a limited of time. Intellectual Property law therefore seeks to harmonise the competing interests of the creator’s ownership and control over the creations, innovations, inventions against the public’s rights to access and usage of such works. For example, a copyright specifically permits certain “fair use” of the materials without the need for permission from or payment to the creator. Indeed, the IP law provides profit incentives and ownership protections to the creators of intellectual property while ensuring that the control is not held so tightly to restrict access or prohibits the development of new works that may be inspired by these protected materials. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are crucial in modern businesses serving not only to make research and development attractive but of increasing significance as tradeable assets and security for investment. Unfortunately, the lack of institutional IP policy to harness the exploitation, protection, ownership and commercialisation of the products of research and translations of ideas/innovations into goods and services for which consumers can pay has been a serious challenge for most universities in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) including Kyambogo University. Therefore, to support universities in SSA to institutionalise the management of 2 | P a g e IPA, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) has put in place infrastructure and guidelines to streamline the exploitation and commercialisation of IP generated by the staff, students and stakeholders at the university instead of only focusing on academic publications per se. One of such infrastructures is the Technology Information Support Centre (TISC) which allows the intending creators/inventors/innovators to search for information related to the IP of interest so that the exclusive rights granted is not contested for infringement and other forms of abuse such as non-disclosure, biopiracy and piracy among others either nationally, regionally or internationally. The rationale for intellectual property polic