Tourism • Arts&Culture The vital task of protecting and promoting Nigerian ideas, culture and innovations for generations to come formed the major thrust of a national intellectual property policy stakeholders’ forum in Abuja, writes Charles Ajunwa The Federal Ministry of Art, Culture and Creative Economy in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment under the leadership of Hannatu Musa Musawa and Doris Uzoka-Anite, respectively, recently organised a stakeholders’ forum on the National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy (NIPPS). The engagement forum held in Abuja, was attended by officials from the Federal Ministry of Justice, all relevant government agencies, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other key players from the private sector to ventilate on the NIPPS and come up with final suggestions on how to improve the policy before it’s taken to government for final approval, which will drive its quick implementation in order to protect intellectual property (IP) in Nigeria. According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation, intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: innovations; literary and artist intellectual works; and symbols, names, and images in commerce.
While intellectual property rights are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain perio.