In 2019 Ethiopian Ambassador to the USA Fitsum Arega tweeted a congratulatory message to all and acknowledged the effort of the court of The Hague. “I just learned that The Court of The Hague ruled against the Teff patent holder. This is great news. I hope we can learn from this that our national assets must be protected by Ethiopian and friends of Ethiopia” he said.
This noble news allows the Ethiopian government to celebrate as a major victory in a long-running dispute over who owns the patent for products made from teff that is an ancient grain that forms the basis of Ethiopia’s staple food, injera.
This situation ignites not only the concern of how to conserve but also how to patent indigenous crops and horticulture in Ethiopia. Although it is not the first, the issue of Teff becomes a central incident to contemplate the value of what patent right means.
Granting patent rights is a common practice in every country. It is a right granted to an inventor by the federal government that permits the inventor to exclude others from making, selling, or using the invention for a while. The patent system is designed to encourage inventions that are unique and useful to society.
A patent is not a Trademark. Because patents prevent others from making or selling an invention, while trademarks protect the words, phrases, symbols, logos, or other devices used to identify the source of goods or services from usage by other competitors.
Besides, a patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of years, in exchange for publishing an enabling public disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent to enforce their rights. In some industries, patent rights are an essential form of competitive advantage and in others they are irrelevant.
Taking the importance of patent into account, Ethiopia ratifies patent Proclamation No. 123/1995 which concerning Inventions, Minor Inventions, and Industrial Designs. According to the Proclamation, the patent is a new invention, involves an inventive step, and is industrially applicable, then it will be patentable. A patent right shall belong to the inventor. Nevertheless, if two or more persons have jointly made an invention the right to the patent shall belong to them jointly.
However, the country ratifies the law, but many researchers or concerned bodies do not compete to have patents for crop and horticulture. Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute Crop and Horticulture Director Wubeshet Teshome told The Ethiopian Herald that to say or identify this crop or horticulture species is from Ethiopia, certain facts need to be fulfilled. Among others, the availability of wild relative crops and related traditional practices or knowledge is very important to mention.
Based on these criteria and the importance of patent, currently, the Areritu Chickpea, Yedebiresina kolo (Roasted barley), Yemenz Sheep, Coffee, and others have been patented in Ethiopia. Much remains to be done to patent the crops and horticulture of the nation he said.
Aman Gebru in his article entitled “Patents and Biopiracy: Disclosure of Origin Requirement as Information-Forcing” stated that there are three core requirements of patentability. These are novelty (newness), non-obviousness, and usefulness (utility). To be considered novel the claimed invention must be different from anything disclosed to the public through a publication, in another patent application, in products or services sold on the market, or in other ways. An invention will be non-obvious if it involves such a high level of inventive step that a person with the average knowledge and skill in that field would be unable to create it easily. To meet the usefulness requirement, an invention must be “minimally operable towards some practical purpose.
Indeed, having patent rights is an important aspect to develop a nation’s crops and horticulture species. Nevertheless, there is a misconception that patents in developing countries have been seen as a luxury and related with most scientific research concentrated in the advanced and a few developed countries. Besides, the impact of patents differs among countries depending on the level of development since national patent systems should be shaped to reflect the socio-economic development needs of countries.
According to Wubeshet, the issue of teff is a teachable moment for Ethiopia. Because in today’s globalized world, the focus of conserving crops and horticulture needs to expand beyond the country’s borders in terms of safeguarding the nation’s cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual species heritage. Regardless of the nation’s wealth and level of socioeconomic development, patented and protecting crops and horticulture species are important for developing countries like Ethiopia.
Apart from economic benefits, it is significant to have a clear and crystal understanding of the biodiversity of Ethiopia. This will help to patent and protect illegal activities coming from inside and outside the country. Besides, it makes the people alert regarding the indigenous species. For this, it is important to use every reliable mechanization and modern technology. It is also necessary to develop conservation systems that don’t expose the crops and horticulture specious into various problems, he explained.
According to Wubeshet, unlike, crops, Ethiopian researchers and research centres haven’t participated in and horticulture researches. Hence, the level of patented horticulture is less compared with crops.
Likewise, there are challenges to patent horticulture species such as size, colour, test, and so on. For instance, Ethiopian mango has good taste. Nonetheless, they vary in terms of size, colour, and so on. They are not the same since some of them are big, while others are small. Their colour also differs from place to place. So it is difficult to export them without fulfilling these criteria.
“Therefore it is important to expand the research works on crops and horticulture apart from innovations and other activities, in this way we can benefit a lot from the sector” he added.
Indeed, food security has always been a decisive development issue for Ethiopia. Although Ethiopia’s immense natural and human potential is greater than in most of sub-Saharan Africa, the country cannot feed itself. To solve food security problems, the country has been focusing on select seeds. However, focusing on only select food is not advisable. It is essential to accommodate both select seeds with indigenous ones. For this, the government, in the future should focus on the nation’s crops and horticulture species to be patented. Hence, it is important to access genetic resources and apply community-based knowledge.
BY EPHREM ANDRGACHEW
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD OCTOBER 1/2021
