Transport Ministry to vet patented speed governors

IP Kenya has spotted a rather curious notice by the Ministry of Transport, which states that the Ministry is in the process of vetting all speed governor fitters and is inviting the fitters to submit the following:

1. Type and model of governor.


2. Patent right/manufactures authorization letter to fit the speed governors.


3. Kenya bureau of Standards certification.


4. Sample of compliance certificate issued to customers.
   

IP Kenya wonders why the ministry requires the fitters to have patented gadgets. Though the notice does not say, what will happen to fitters who may have not bothered to patent or whose patent rights have expired?

A patent on how to bypass a speed governor here

Sanitam at it again on patent infringement

As reported here by the Nation, Sanitam Services has taken another company to court for infringing its patent AP 773 relating to a sanitary bin. According to the report Sanitam wants Hygiene Bins stopped from supplying bins infringing the patent.

In disputing the infringement claim, Hygiene Bins argued that its bins are imported from Malaysia and that Sanitam is harassing companies dealing in sanitary bins.

It appears that Sanitam is using both civil and criminal provisions provided for in the Industrial Property Act to fight off others who it perceives to be infringing its patent. Section 109 of the Act stipulates that any intentional infringement of a patent constitutes an offence punishable with a fine of between Ksh. 10,000 and Ksh 50,000 or imprisonment for 3 to 5 years.

A week a go a number of executives whose companies were dealing with sanitary bins were taken to court on criminal charges for infringing the same patent.

In February this year as reported here Sanitam obtained an interlocutory injunction against Nairobi Bins for the same patent and in 2006 it obtained permanent injunction against Rentokil in the Court of Appeal.

The latest onslaught comes after the decision by ARIPO removing the patent from the register for non payment of renewal fees was rescinded by the Board of Appeal.

Water hyacinth conference, patent and one stone to kill two birds

A Daily Nation report has it that the first international water hyacinth commercialisation conference will be held in Nairobi in August, organised by Hyaquip Inc of Canada and its Kenyan affiliate bearing the same name.

The report further indicates that the company has engineered equipment for processing the water hyacinth for use as fertilizer. Simon Mwaura who heads the Kenyan Office is reported to have patented a hyacinth extraction process in Canada, US and Kenya.

A search through the WIPO PCT database reveals that Mwaura is indeed the applicant and inventor of international patent number PCT/IB2004/000352 which designates a host of countries including US and Canada. The application was filed in 2004 and is titled “method of converting aquatic plants especially hyacinth into useful products”.

A search through the USPTO database could not establish the status of the application, while the Canadian database reveals that the international application entered the national phase in Canada on 21st July 2006 as application number CA 2554227.

It will be recalled that despite numerous attempts to eradicate water hyacinth by means of mechanical harvesters, it is still a big threat to Lake Victoria – the second largest fresh water lake in the world, shared by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

According to Mwaura, there are firms willing to invest a tidy sum of money in a project to export the fertilizer to the Middle East. If this venture of making fertilizer out of the weed is successful, perhaps we may have at hand the proverbial stone to kill two birds at once – removal of the notorious weed from the fish ways of Lake Victoria as well as an answer to the scarcity and high cost of fertilizer currently affecting farming activity in the country.

Kenya in below average performance in Global IP protection Index.

In a report titled International Property Rights Index 2008, by Property Rights Alliance, Kenya is ranked at position 82 on the strength of protecting Intellectual Property Rights.

According to the report, data for the survey was sources from diverse sources, including data supplied by 41 organizations some of who are IP owners. This indeed raises certain questions on the credibility of the data and also about its up-to-dateness. For example the data used to analyze Trade Mark protection was compiled 10 years ago and copyright piracy level is sourced from the USTR 301 watch list!

While Finland is ahead of the pack, surprisingly US occupy position 10 in the index. Interestingly, our neighbours Tanzania and Uganda are not doing so badly compared to Kenya. They are ahead at position 68 and 75 respectively. Not bad, Right?