Verdict
IP as key to unlocking Nigeria’s hidden wealth
Professor Adebambo Adewopo, SAN, Distinguished IP Chair, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and Former Director General, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), in this paper describes Intellectual Property as the missing key to unlocking the hidden wealth of our country. He says resources, whether human or natural, are meaningless, without the knowledge to harness it for the benefit of the society. “That is why human and natural resources, no matter how abundant, are still limited without the creative and innovative capacities to turn them into knowledge assets that are protected by the well-known mechanism of IPRs for global competitiveness.” Prof Adewopo’s paper hinged on the theme, “THE BANE OF COUNTERFEIT PHARMACEUTICALS AND PIRACY: BUILDING RESPECT FOR IPRS AS A STRATEGIC RESOURCE FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH” was delivered at the Intellectual Property Symposium hosted by the Office of the International Intellectual Property and Computer Hacking Attorney Advisor, Department of Justice & Embassy of the US Nigeria on 16 & 17 Sept. 2019 at Eko Hotels & Suites, Lagos.
BY ADEBAMBO ADEWOPO
This Intellectual Property (IP) Symposium has once again brought IP in Nigeria to the forefront of national and international discourse. In over half a century of post-Independence IP regime, not much has changed in a world where everything and everything about IP changes at such rapidity and intensity, particularly with the advancement in digital technology of the current Internet Era. For IP lawyers in this country, the years 1965, 1970 and 1988 have continued to mark the respective ages of our trademark, patents and copyright legislation and by this, have harangued our jurisprudence and marketplace inexorably. It has also continued to challenge our reform complex. The state of IP and related laws has engaged the attention of policy makers, stakeholders and scholars for more than two decades and more intensely in recent time. The consensus has been that IP has become far too important to ignore in our development aspiration at all levels and in many different sectors as a nation. That realisation has become the reality of our current engagement in the promotion and pursuit of a more dynamic and IP-friendly environment that would support creativity and innovation, and spur economic growth. While the increasing role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) as a strategic resource for economic growth has continued in its ever-growing significance to the core values of human enterprise and development, that role is much more assured in the increasingly borderless world of the 4th Industrial Era marked by rapid advances in digital technologies. The opportunities and challenges of the global economy can only leave an unconnected country behind. As the opportunities are opening new possibilities, the challenges are cutting new paths for future progress for the society to benefit from new ideas, businesses and technologies.
In this regard, the role of IP has been historic as it has been multidimensional in its impact. It cuts across many productive sectors of the economy and development disciplines. It promises to assist in harnessing the enormous human resources that abound everywhere and in every field of human enterprise. In Nigeria, we often speak of the rich human resources as one of our greatest natural endowments. In reality, that resources in context should be referring to knowledge assets that are the products of creativity and innovation that constitute the hidden wealth of nations today. The main difference between the developed and lesser developed countries is the gap in the human resources constituted in the production of knowledge assets and the accompanying technologies that have continued to drive the engine of development and global welfare. Any kind of resources, whether human or natural, is meaningless without the knowledge to harness it for the benefit of the society. That is why human and natural resources no matter how abundant are still limited without the creative and innovative capacities to turn them into knowledge assets that are protected by the well-known mechanism of IPRs for global competitiveness.
The whole debate about the global knowledge economy and how developing countries like Nigeria are faring revolves around important questions on how these countries can engage not as consumers, but as net producers of knowledge assets in the emergent marketplace. We have continued to see the same countries who persistently innovate with only few new entrants who attach high value to innovation maintain top spots in successive global competitiveness, innovation and development indexes and rankings. With digital technologies, the global knowledge economy has entered a renewed phase. In this phase, we are confronted with the new industries of artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, 3D printing, codification of payment systems, genomics and much more with far reaching implications on IPR system. Clearly, this emerging wave of technologies are challenging current legal norms including IP and are creating new norms that have become crucial for the production and dissemination of information and knowledge assets in every sector. Consequently, with the IP system standing as the primary policy and legal infrastructure of innovation and the singular currency of the digital economy, the stakes get higher as the frontiers of technological innovations are pushed further into new boundaries.
IP has never been more economically and politically significant than it is today, particularly in the multidimensional drive towards development. And by this, development in all ramifications including both social and economic, and in what has been termed ‘sustainable.’ More than before, the global IP system has assumed increasing complexity which in itself calls for a better understanding of the dynamic interaction between IP systems and sustainable development goals (SDGs). It is now not too far-fetched among policy makers and development experts that a considerable proportion of these lofty goals that the global community has set for itself directly impacts creativity and innovation of the people geared towards the flourishing of the society, for example, towards viable industries, improved productivity and standard of living, eradicating poverty, among other goals. The call for a revised or new IP framework in Nigeria has become both tedious and perennial that it evokes importunity on the magnitude of national loss that accrues with each new day of absence of IP reform. The progress of Nigeria’s development policies can be measured by her commitment to a national IP policy that would recognise the strategic importance of IPR legal framework to the needs and goals of national development. The framework will address the protection and enforcement of IPRs in key sectors, promotion of creativity and innovation, investment in research and development and encouragement of local knowledge and production at the expense of importation of counterfeit and pirated products.
Yet it is often difficult to adequately address IP violations without an efficient and effective IP framework. IPR enforcement comes into sharp focus because it is what gives IPR its teeth and bite. Within the IP system, enforcement framework is important to deliver in concrete terms the benefits of rights protection to creators and producers of IP works. Clearly, counterfeiting and piracy have continued to destroy the fabric of the economy, especially the pharmaceutical, creative and other important sectors. Without the drudgery of statistics, the rate of piracy and counterfeiting are all too glaring to see and feel by the industry of creators, entrepreneurs, government and the public at large. It robs legitimate revenue from creativity and innovation and distorts market efficiency and public access that IP system is meant to regulate. In its well- known structure, whether at the points of production and distribution, including import or export and in the digital and online environment, enforcement framework is central to IPR protection and continues to offer the most practical and effective legal and judicial solution to the risks of IPR violations that is rampant in the industry today. It is however important to note that IPR protection embodies and resolves the tension and sometimes the dilemma that accompany the exercise of IP rights in the various products and the granting of different forms of access to them by the consuming public. Because IP system regulates access to the creative and innovative products in order to ensure public welfare, whether in the form of providing access to educational materials to the teeming young population in schools or to affordable medicines or in achieving food security for both the young as well as aged, the framework also aligns education, health and other strategic national policies with the broader development goals that would enable IP system deliver on its promises of public welfare and economic growth.
These are some of the tasks a sound IP policy can deliver for a productive economy and this is why this IP Symposium hosted by the Office of the International Intellectual Property and Computer Hacking Attorney Advisor in association with key public and private sector stakeholders is significant. The Symposium has drawn a critical mass of IP community in Nigeria to deepen awareness and advocacy on building respect for intellectual property as a national treasure, to engage, network and form alliances and IP enforcement coalition for an improved IPR environment, particularly in navigating the rapidly changing digital environment that only collaboration and cooperation can effectively manage. While the IP debate has not been entirely new, one of the missing elements has been effective collaboration and cooperation that is needed to gain momentum not only for achieving reform but also to combat both the domestic and worldwide industry of counterfeiting, piracy and cybercrime. Building strategic alliances within and outside the country is therefore critical considering the global nature of digital technologies that are readily available to this formidable industry. In these alliances, we are also seeking to strengthen key institutions responsible for protecting IPR and combating counterfeiting and piracy. While enforcement is primarily IPR holder-driven requiring some form of regulatory or institutional support, large scale piracy and counterfeiting draws a wider private-public synergy to protect both owner and consumer rights and confront the real threat to investment and public interest. Every regulatory system retains their public value with the establishment of an enabling environment for the protection of industries and markets, especially for its cultural products that form the productive base of the economy. As the global recognition of Nigeria’s creative industries continues to ride on the wings of digital technology, the gains of that industry are best secured and sustained through strategic alliance with its counterpart in Hollywood and elsewhere.
It is important to note that the creative industries should be able to yield better dividend for its creators, operators and economy as a whole. The same for the pharmaceutical and other corporate sectors that rely on IP system. The challenge has been how to engineer an IP system that will perform and deliver better in concrete economic terms. With the challenge of harnessing creative and productive capacities, the main challenge, however, has been the ability to evolve appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks suitable for effective management of the creativity and innovation in those industries. These challenges have implications for optimisation of knowledge capacities in the digital economy with changing paradigms and business models. With the rich array of key public and private sector players, one can safely say that the awareness and readiness for more concerted effort in improving the IP ecosystem is promising. The Nigerian IP based industries which have grown eminently to the cutting edge of IP protection deserve much more than they are getting from IP system. It is in this context that this Symposium should consider leveraging Nigeria’s productive capacities as strategic resources for economic growth.
This discussion involving experts, key stakeholders, law and policy makers is easily the building block for developing effective synergies for promoting and deepening respect for the culture of creativity and innovation and IP, combating counterfeiting and piracy and pushing IP reform agenda that should by now receive the needed political priority. For emphasis, the synergy involves drawing a working framework or a form of memorandum of understanding or a manual, howsoever we may call it, that would ensure a seamless and effective operation for all the agencies responsible for IPR enforcement within the different mandates of protection of products, be it for creative works and other IP products. In our shared experiences and lessons, we must therefore rise with one voice to proclaim the gospel of IP as the missing key to unlocking the hidden wealth of our country. As an immediate measure, the drawing of an IPR enforcement framework among all the key agencies responsible for IPR enforcement easily becomes a vital action plan in meeting of this nature. Our sheer size and diversity, our rich biodiversity, our innate capacities and industry as a people combine to make the dream of development attainable, feasible and realistic. Our consciousness of the value and protection of creativity is our strongest asset in realising the development goals of IP system. This is why this Symposium is not only significant but also timely and the discussions in these two days can help shape the contours of IP strategies, synergies, advocacy, policy making and the reform in view. Within those ideals and at the risk of repetition, our attention is most critically engaged in the two imperatives of developing IPR enforcement framework and IPR reform as the strategic action to support the existing national economic and development trajectories. Those are the key points of interest in this important Symposium.