ETHIOPIA: Ministers Give Go-Ahead to Join Paris Convention and Madrid Protocol

Ethiopia’s Council of Ministers has approved the country’s accession to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks. The Council made the announcement on October 1, 2024.

Both agreements require the Ethiopian Federal Parliament to ratify them. This will involve intellectual property (IP) law reform, which the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Authority is understood to be working on in consultation with local practitioners.

These recent developments in Ethiopia should be seen positively. Ethiopia’s accession to two major IP treaties, together with the modernization of its IP laws, should bring the country more into line with global standards.

The Madrid Protocol in Africa

With Ethiopia acceding to the Madrid Protocol, it might be appropriate to look at this in some detail.

The following African countries and regional organization are members of the Madrid Protocol: Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Egypt, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, OAPI (African Intellectual Property Organization), Rwanda, Sao Tome e Principe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tunisia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

International Registrations (IRs) are seemingly neither effective nor valid in Eswatini, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. These are all so-called common law countries, where an international agreement can only become part of the domestic law if the agreement is expressly enacted into the national law by an Act of Parliament. This has not happened, which means that an IR cannot be lawfully processed or enforced, and the only reliable protection is by means of a national trademark registration.

In Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Sao Tome e Principe, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, the validity of an IR designation may be open to challenge owing to examination issues.

An amendment to the Bangui Agreement (the unified law that governs IP rights within OAPI) came into force on January 1, 2022, which now provides a legal framework for the registration and enforcement of IRs. However, the constitutional basis for this remains open to interpretation.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. Law & Practice updates are published without comment from INTA except where it has taken an official position.

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