Prosecution

Sharing its place with other phases which make up part of a trademark’s life cycle, such as the early stages of branding and filing strategy until the phase of defence of the right, maintenance is important to IP holders, expressly for peculiar systems such as the Cape Verdean one.

The year 2021 marks an important phase in trademark maintenance in Cape Verde, as it establishes the commencement of the payment of renewals in the island country.

In relation to the 50th anniversary of Inventa International, we have been given the challenge to analyze certain intellectual property data over the past 50 years on the African continent.

As it is impossible to cover a panoramic view of the various events, we chose just a few topics we found interesting for this minor-scale study. At the outset, it seems important for us to outline a short introduction about the African continent and the protection of industrial property in the countries of which it is made up.

Located in the Horn of Africa with a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres and approximately 118 million inhabitants, Ethiopia shares borders with Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Somaliland, Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan.

The history of the country dates back 2,000 years. From 1973 to around 2000, Ethiopia was plagued by drought, famine, infectious diseases, internal conflict, war and an unstable economy.

In a globalized world, driven by the information technologies revolution and the service economy, the tangible assets are less and less valuable, while intangible assets, increasingly valuable, are emerging as the key to success, leading the companies to seek how to best use their intangible assets.

With a population growth rate of 2.25%, Egypt has the second biggest population in Africa, as well as the third-largest economy. The Egyptian government is promoting investment in all economic sectors and is already a continental leader in some. For instance, Egypt is the largest construction market in Africa, with more than $350 billion of active projects.

Just under half (48%) of active projects are represented by the real estate sector. The energy and transport sectors take up second and third places with 18% and 17%, respectively, of active projects. 

Rwanda is a landlocked country, located south of the Equator in east-central Africa, bordering Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Uganda. Its capital, located in the centre of the country, is Kigali and the local currency is the Rwandan Franc, issued by the National Bank of Rwanda.

The last two decades have been ones of reconstruction and reconciliation, following the troubled 90s that left the country scarred by civil war and the 1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 civilians were tragically killed.

Introduction

By the end of 2019, humanity was confronted by a new infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus, the covid-19 that led, on March 11th, 2020 the Word Health Organization (WHO) to declare the state of a global pandemic.

Trademarks are the main form of IP right in Cape Verde. To date, 4,355 trademark applications have been advertised in the IP Bulletin.

Applicants with the highest number of trademark applications in the country originate from:

Our colleague Vitor Sérgio Moreira, Patent Manager at Inventa International, is one of the top recommended individuals in the IAM 1000 listings in Portugal for 2021.

Vitor's work is guided by efficiency and professionalism, a determining factor for the success of Inventa International and which accompanies the entire team. IAM Patent 1000 is the World’s Leading Patent Professionals, a unique guide that ranks global leaders in providing IP value creation expertise to rights owners.

We are proud to announce that our firm, Inventa International, is distinguished as Leading IP Firm for Trademark and Patent Prosecution and Highly Recommended firm in IP Litigation, in Leaders League 2021 Portugal ranking.