Global Brand Offers Window Into Africa’s Intellectual Property Rights

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — For 30 years, Nandos, a South African, Portuguese-themed eatery, has made its brand, poking fun at politicians, laughing at the madcaps of society, throwing innuendos with joyful abandon and filling tummies with peri-peri chicken.

The global brand became a window into Africa’s intellectual property rights at last week’s International Trademark Association (INTA) conference.

The meeting attended by over 180 attendees from 34 countries was held for the first time in Africa on 1-2 September in Cape Town under ‘Building Africa with Brands’ theme.

Robert Brozin, co-founder of Nandos, admits they thrive on social commentary.

But that alone was not enough. A little bit of ingenuity has helped them along.

Nandos was not the original name choice. Initially, it was meant to be Fernando’s Chicken.

A name check with the registry of companies revealed the name was taken. It later became Nandos, after co-founder Fernando Duarte’s child.

From the humble beginnings in the neighbourhood of Rosettenville, formerly home to white Portuguese-speaking immigrants in Johannesburg, South Africa, chickens were flame grilled.

The brand grew and the Barcelos Cockerel became recognisable in South Africa, Africa and then globally, captivating customers on five continents.

Aware that they had no money, the two friends made sure of one thing. Their first advert in 1986 had to have impact.

“We had no money, we had to be controversial and we had to be noticed,” said Bozin.

The advert was flighted on a Friday afternoon, ran over a weekend, by next Monday it had to be withdrawn. It had caused enough uproar.

“People were asking, who are these guys,” Brozin said.

Running one controversial advertisement after another over the weekends and then withdrawing it on a Monday became a tradition. It cemented their brand.

Nando’s eventually bought Fernandos Chicken to protect their brand.

As Brozin, the INTA keynote speaker, reflected on Nandos journey, its business challenges and successes, it became clear, building Africa with brands was possible.

As for following the same route, it was debatable.

Can Africa be Built with Brands?

Political and legal developments in the past few years have made conditions for protecting intellectual property rights – trademarks, patents, designs and copyright – in Africa encouraging for innovators and businesses to enjoy fruits of their work.

But, judging by views from representative organisations on their achievements in the past few years, more needs to be done in Africa for the processes’ to run smoothly, it seems.

A senior World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) official told the INTA meeting that the organisation saw a surge in applications for trademarks and country registrations in the past twelve months.

South Africa registered a huge number of trademark applications, more than double applications from the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) and in the past year, another official revealed.

But, for most countries, IP awareness remains on the agenda.

Rory Voller, acting commissioner, South African Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (SA CIPC) said they improved ways to handle counterfeits in the past year.

He said working with WIPO, SA CIPC developed a manual to help various stakeholders tackle intellectual property infringements which he said “were difficult to investigate and prosecute.”

Amongst the stakeholders trained in a week-long workshop on how to investigate cases fully were the National Prosecuting Authorities, South African Revenue Services representatives, brand holders, the industry and the judiciary, Voller said.

“They [now] feel empowered to go out in the South African market and deal with the issues,” he said.

South Africa’s CIPC combines company registrations and trademarks protection.

ARIPO Director General Fernando Antonio dos Santos told the meeting the organisation has come a long way since it was established 40 years ago from a position where a country was very far from having intellectual property at registration to having a registry that covers trademarks.

The organisation has worked on harmonisation of IP laws of different member states.

ARIPO has also moved to protect traditional knowledge and last year a new protocol on plant varieties was established.

Santos said the 19-member ARIPO has worked hard to ease the process of IP applications. Companies can now apply online for registrations with a 20 percent discount.

ARIPO deals with different intellectual property rights, but Santos said since they are not the users they work closely with national offices who also register trademarks.

Debbie Roenning, director, legal division, Madrid registry, brands and design sector at WIPO, said 2016 has been a big year for Madrid registry, which has so far registered 123 countries. The Madrid registry maintains the International Registry of Trademarks. WIPO received almost 50,000 international applications.

“The system is getting more used, and we are getting more designation from South African companies,” Roenning said, hoping to get more filings from different African countries.

She said Africa had exciting developments on IP.

Roenning said OAPI (Organisation Africaine de la Propriete Intellectuelle) member countries have helped boost registrations in Africa. While Gambia joined the protocol last year, South Africa, Malawi, were hoped to join in two to three years.

Roenning said they are working with countries in Africa that are members of WIPO, but have no intellectual property legislation in place, while they are assisting others revise their legislation.

“We see that efforts being made are going to bear fruit,” she said, noting that Botswana and Ghana have revised their legislations. Rwanda has initiated revisions of its laws and Zimbabwe is finalising the act. “Things are improving,” she said.

WIPO intends to open an office in Africa in the next two years but it will depend on the winning applicant country, Roenning said.

Disparity in Filings

Voller said from 2009 and 2010, filing in South Africa declined during the global economic crisis but last year the registrations shot up to 37,000 applications, a big jump, and is looking forward to higher trademark registrations this year.

For ARIPO, the registration across Africa is not that positive for patents and trademarks. There were only 15,000 registrations, said Santos.

“We don’t see much of the registration, even with the global economic crises we didn’t see figures going up or down,” said Santos.

He said this is not only a challenge for IP offices, but for IP experts to come up with ideas to improve the systems so that institutions can bring more efficiency and systems are much easier to use.

“There is need to trust in these systems, to use it, so that we [Africa] can grow,” he added.

Some participants were concerned that some African countries are members of WIPO yet, their countries don’t have national laws to protect a brand holder, which makes it difficult for brand holders enforce their rights.

Roenning said they are working with respective countries, providing assistance so that they have the required legislation.

Santos said national input is a long process to get laws passed but such delays happen in a number of countries.

He said some countries have localised the Madrid Protocol, like Namibia, which did so last month, but sometimes countries need their own regulations to adopt these laws.

Santos appealed to IP experts against judging systems in Africa when they have never used them.

“We have an idea that things are bad but we have never tried them, even enforced them?” he said. There are a number of achievements and developments in Africa, he added, but the global industry is still stuck in a time when things were not working.

“You need to check and test the systems,” said Santos. “We need to help the systems grow by using them.”

 

Image Credits: Munyaradzi Makoni