Bigirimana's Livelihood Copyright gets Mixed Reactions

Front Desk - An interesting debate about a granted copyright incident has developed in Kampala – Uganda. It all starts with the registrar of copyright granting copyright protection to the Youth Livelihood Model (YLM)) which later gave birth to the Youth Livelihood Programme(YLP) to Mr Pius Bigirimana. The registrar is from Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB), the government agency in charge of registering intellectual property rights aspects. Mr Pius Bigirimana is a government employee, Permanent Secretary in the ministry in charge of implementing the model. Copyright in Uganda is regulated by the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006. The Youth Livelihood model is a development concept that has been adopted by the government in its anti-poverty campaign. Although Mr Bigirimana has waived his economic right to royalty for the use of his copyright, the debate is whether he should have been granted the rights in the first place. This is from issues that include; as a government employee, the copyright should have been given to the employer, whether the works are original ‘enough’ to grant copyright. This is because copyright protection is given for the expression of an idea, and not an idea in itself. This debate shows an increasing interest in the value of copyright in particular, and intellectual property rights in general, in Uganda. On these two links, are opinions by two lawyers on different sides. http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/Bigirimana-s-copyright--raises-more-questions-than-answers/-/689364/2772998/-/10mxgt2/-/index.html and http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/Why-Bigirimana-is-entitled-to-copyright-protection/-/689364/2790498/-/xf4lfh/-/index.html

Uganda increases intellectual property rights collection fees.

Intellectual property rights are gaining momentum in Uganda. A number of IP regulation and protection laws have been in the past. The Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB) was also activated by an act of Parliament to among others, register components of intellectual property in the country. Ever since URSB was operationalised, "Uganda now collects Uganda shillings 20 billion shillings from intellectual property rights fees, from 5 billion in 2010," According to Mercy Kyomugisha, the deputy director at URSB. Copyrights aspects include trademarks, patents, copyrights, utility models and industrial designs. Muheebwa Hillary is a journalist based in Kampala, specialising in covering intellectual property rights.