Rwanda is seeking support from World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in safeguarding and protecting some of its own scientific inventions.

This was announced at the opening of a two-day conference between officials from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and experts from WIPO, in Kigali on Monday.

Government officials expressed concerns over failure to own entirely home-grown innovations or solutions which can be easily distorted or stolen by fraudsters.

This comes a few years after government enacted the law on intellectual property; initially praised and highly welcomed by artistes whose works were the subject of piracy.

Experts in the field reiterated that fertile grounds of innovations including pharmaceutical and handcraft industries are highly exposed to exploitation by marauding manufacturers who violate copyright rules.

According to Dr Marie Christine Gasingirwa, Director General of science, research and innovation at the Ministry of Education, Rwanda is endowed with inventions despite sluggish progress in research.

"There are quite a number of fertile grounds to conduct research to promote indigenous practices where we will need more of these instruments for protection,” she said.

Gasingirwa stressed that in the absence of cooperation with international bodies on intellectual properties, national efforts would be futile.

"There will be a need to promote awareness to have all multidisciplinary sectors captured, including anthropology, engineering, biotechnology and others, Intellectual property rights knowledge is still very low,” she added.

Ownership of a property, according to officials, involves registration of the creation, licensing a patent of the model and its utility, recording its geographical locations; giving it an industrial design and a trademark, and ensuring that it falls under copyrights regulations.

"We have to educate people about that, so that intellectual property becomes a learning process,” said Kifle Shenkoru, the director at WIPO in charge of division for least developed countries.

Shenkoru, however, said there is optimism in Rwanda looking at the country’s Vision 2020 and Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategies.

"The Vision 2020 emphasises science and technology, invention and innovations; intellectual property is and should be a policy and a strategic tool for economic growth and development,”

"Information on the patent system has not been adequately exploited by Rwandans and, as long as awareness continue to be low, patent information or development, which is one of the sources of technology will slow down capacity building,” he added.

Emmanuel Hategeka, the Trade and Industry Ministry’s Permanent Secretary said knowledge and technology can be used as a tool to end poverty since it is used to sustain growth and development.

"The application of scientific and technological information and knowledge in Industry and in Agriculture and other sectors is very critical and cannot be overemphasised, all these are solutions on developmental identified challenges,” he said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw