eBusiness Weekly
Dr Tony Monda
Earlier this year, this writer was invited to the launching of the National Intellectual Property Policy and Implementation Strategy under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, officiated by the respective Minister the Honourable Ziyambi Ziyambi at the Rainbow Towers in Harare.
Being a staunch advocate for the implementation of copyright law and the protection of Zimbabwean artists and their creative production since the beginning of the 1990s, I deemed it important to share this knowledge with practicing artists and the general public.
The practice, appreciation and patronage of the visual arts are a reflection of a nation’s IQ, its civility, economic potential and cultural and creative aptitude.
Beginning with the global inclusion of the creative industries in the national economies at the dawn of the New Millennium and endorsed a decade later with the signing of the Brussels Declarations of 2009, at the International Symposium on Culture and Development, at which this writer participated, the arts were viewed as “playing a vital role in the business and economic completeness of developed nations . . . ”
Due to the world’s consensual recognition of the economic, social and cultural role of the arts and creativity, artistic production has never been more universal, more innovative and more easily distributed, shared and exchanged as they are today.
However, with international trade and enterprise arises the need to protect the arts, whilst simultaneously enhancing developing nations’ domestic physical, legal and institutional capacities to protect local inventions and the artistic and scientific production of the nation and augment sustainable socio-economic transformation as was stipulated in the Zim-Asset programme of Zimbabwe.
Royalties and license fees based on intellectual property rights have outpaced global economic growth in recent years to generate an estimated $180 billion in revenue a year, according to a United Nations report which says growing demand for such rights is stimulating innovation at businesses worldwide.
The following is a list of countries with the largest share of worlds $329 billion intellectual property revenues:
US $128
European Union $22
Japan $32
Switzerland $21
Canada $6
South Korea $5
Singapore $2
Taiwan, China $1
China $1
Israel $1
All other $11
Source: Progressive economy, trade facts 2013
Global filing activity for patents and trademarks also grew in 2013. The estimated 2,6 million patent applications filed worldwide in 2013 represented a growth of 9 per cent on 2012.
Rising much faster, utility model (UM) applications increased by about 18 percent due to sharp growth in China. Trademark filing activity rose by around 6 percent — similar to the level witnessed in the previous year.
And industrial design filing activity grew by only 2,5 percent in 2013, considerably less than the 16 percent recorded in 2012.
This lower growth mainly resulted from a slowdown in the number of industrial design applications filed in China.
In adjunct to the latter, to realise Zimbabwe’s aspirations and stimulate the much employment generation, the nation needs to engage in the global intellectual governance systems.
This aspiration has since been fulfilled with the recent launching of the Zimbabwe National Intellectual Property Policy Strategy (ZNIPPS), 2018-2022.
According to this new document: “In today’s world, intellectual property (IP), is assuming great importance and has become one of the most eminent key drivers of economic growth globally, as most countries are migrating from the traditional resource-based economies towards knowledge-based economies”.
As I have often reiterated in the past, with the advent of a knowledge-based society and the use of the internet and digital content, IP protection has become mandatory.
The knowledge of intellectual property and its practice, ensures that artists, innovators, scientists and other creators, have sufficient incentive to bring their works to the global market, in order to benefit the creator and the nation.
Over the past decade, there has been an exponential increase in intellectual property legal filings worldwide, especially in the field of trademarks and patents, which are crucial to both, scientific and artistic creativity.
Emerging economies like India, Brazil, China and Russia who are competing with the large Western economies of the world, have increased their global royalties and licensing revenues, much to the benefit of these countries, that have now adopted intellectual property strategies.
With the new Zimbabwean dispensation and the Second Republic’s mantra of world re-engagement, investing in the artists, scientists and inventors as key drivers of the projected economic growth is a necessary step to take for global inclusion of Zimbabwe in the intellectual property matrix.
As I have often reiterated, the arts including visual, performing and auditory arts, address economic grown on a sustainable basis and should be regarded as part of Zimbabwe’s employment creation and civic empowerment programmes under the new dispensation.
This envisaged utopic creative cultural industry that ought to define Zimbabwe, cannot be achieved however, without engaging the artists, the creative industry and the IP policy makers.
In order to achieve inclusive sustainable economic growth for the arts and culture, the Zimbabwean government’s respective arts and cultural ministries, together with those of heritage, finance, commerce and industry and Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, ought to form an inter-ministerial body with invests in the structural, physical and human fabric of the arts, by constructing and providing relevant facilities in the various cities, towns and provinces, thus generating employments — including in the tourism and cultural sectors, and accordingly generate improve the economic livelihood of the people.
The arts are equally relevant to achieve a sustainable economic growth in Zimbabwe. It is not impossible for Zimbabwe to generate creative and innovative resources to empower artists in their production of goods for a new knowledge-based economy under the new dispensation.
In order to generate the creative of innovations and original content in the new knowledge-based economy and to utilise such resources for economic growth, it is primarily necessary to stimulate and re-vitalise intellectual creations at tertiary educational institutions and within communities that produce cultural heirlooms of an artistic nature.
However, economic revitalisation cannot be effectively achieved unless the end product and its creator are adequately protected and effectively utilised as intellectual property.
At an international level, Zimbabwe being a member of WIPO and a number of intellectual property treaties administered under this world intellectual body. Some of the treaties that Zimbabwe has acceded to under the auspices of WIPO include: The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Zimbabwe further ratified the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
The TRIPS Agreement engendered a paradigm shift in the way countries deal with intellectual property matters, as it is the first international instrument to comprehensively integrate intellectual property as a trade issue. At the regional level, Zimbabwe is member of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO), whose headquarters are situated in Harare.
Zimbabwe has ratified a number of treaties within ARIPO. These include the Harare Protocol, the Banjul Protocol and the Swakopmund Protocol that was recently concluded on the protection of traditional knowledge and expressions of folklore.
As the Honourable Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Hon Ziyambi Ziyambi (MP) concluded: “An effective intellectual property system which properly embeds IP issues within a national development agenda, will help a country to promote the generation of IP, to protect its IP assets and to leverage IP assets for economic growth and development”.
Dr Tony M. Monda represented the Visual Arts and Cultural Sector at the launch of the National Intellectual Property Policy and Implementation Strategy (ZNIPPS) 2018-2022.
Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration) in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies from the University of Washington and worked with WALA — (Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts) as an intern. For Comments E-mail: [email protected]
