A few weeks back, one Jules Gahizi posted on social media images of sandals on sale, and urged members of the public, including Rwanda Development Board’s Chief Executive Clare Akamanzi, to rate his work.

However, in a quick rejoinder, UZURI K&Y, a local shoe-making company, through their Twitter handle, accused Gahizi of using one of their shoe brands to promote his brand.

Co-founded by Kevine Kagirimpundu and Ysolde Shimwe, UZURI K&Y is a popular design house known for their shoe brand which they have been producing since 2013.

The duo accused Gahizi of intellectual theft, saying that he used their patented shoe brand and Akamanzi, who initially appreciated the sandals in Gahizi’s post, played an intermediary role and called both sides to her office to have an amicable solution to the dispute.

Later, Gahizi explained that he had no intention of infringing on UZURI K&Y’s intellectual property by posting the shoes which he thought were an innovation of another sandals manufacturing company ‘Twinkle Group’.

"What I did was to help my friend (the alleged owner) who requested me to support her business on my page,” he posted on his Twitter.

Gahizi ‘apologized’ after he realized that the shoes he promoted for Twinkle were actually UZURI K&Y’s.

Through the Made-in-Rwanda campaign aimed at promoting locally-made products, designers are encouraged to be more innovative through creating their own brands.

They are also encouraged to patent their brands to protect them from infringement.

However, the rise in cases of patent infringements leaves the designers feeling that efforts invested in designing and registering their patents are worthless as long as their businesses continue to suffer losses with customers increasingly getting hoodwinked to buy replicated designs.

Teta Isibo, the CEO of Inzuki Designs, which specializes in jewellery, fashion accessories and interior decor derived from unique hand-made products, is one of designers whose business has been adversely affected by patent infringements.

She says her numerous crafts have been replicated over the past years, and with no consequence to the culprits.

"We have copyrighted numerous designs with RDB but our products, including copyrighted ones, are being replicated from everywhere especially in the craft markets,” Isibo said.

Rwanda’s copyright law protects works by innovators, inventors, creators of industrial designs, creators of layout designs of integrated circuits, creators of distinctive signs used in trade, authors of literary, artistic and scientific works, performers, phonogram producers and other authors and creators of original intellectual content.

For a company’s products to be protected, they are required to seek and have a patent giving them legal monopoly granted to make use and sell its invention, and to exclude others from doing so.

However, Isibo lamented that local designers have found it "very difficult” to find a way to stop the vice because the copying is so pervasive and not just one company is doing it but many small scale vendors.

"It has led to loss of a large part of our business and diluted the strength of our brand. We are yet to find a solution for this problem,” she said.

Costily procedure

Similar sentiments are shared by Ysolde Shimwe of UZURI K&Y, who said that there should be a clear mechanism of holding accountable those that infringe on their patents.

"It is unfortunate that the law is not reinforced for the aftermath of cases where your creations get infringed. RDB encourages cases like these to be solved amicably and if not file a case.  It becomes very difficult for SME as they possibly cannot afford to hire a lawyer for that case,” she said.

She added: "There should be terms that protect creators after they have registered for IP. Serious punishment such as a fine penalty, destruction of the counterfeits etc…that are set and monitored by the law, could possibly discourage individuals from creating counterfeits.” 

Yet by not registering their designs, Registrar General, Richard Kayibanda, said innovators deny themselves the opportunity to ‘monopoly’, and the chance to recoup the investment made in developing the innovation.

However, when asked about RDB’s work, Kayibanda said that all they do is helping two parties – the owner of the patent and the one who infringes – to reach an amicable solution.

"If the two are able to reach an agreement this ends the issue and basically if they are able to reach an agreement it means they are all satisfied with it. However, if an agreement cannot be reached, then either of them who is interested files a case with the competent court of law for determination,” Kayibanda said.

With industrial design protection, the creator of the design has exclusive rights to exploit the design for 10 years, renewable for five additional years.

RDB has so far registered a total of 104 design applications since 2010 and only eight of these are in the apparel sector, a number that Kayibanda says is still small.

Need for IP law enforcement

Desire Makuza, an IP lawyer, admits that the IP law gives full protection to not only local designers but players in the creative industry in general to have an exclusive right to prevent others from exploiting the patented innovation without authorization, but claims that only a few know their rights to the law.

To ensure enforcement of the law, Makuza suggests there is also a need for capacity building among different departments of justice which he says do not have enough understanding about the importance of the law before ensuring the protection for the victims.

"The justice sector does not have enough understanding of the intellectual property law and that may lead to unfair decisions while ruling cases related to copyright infringements. That’s why all departments need to be trained about the law so they may have an advanced understanding of the law and we are willing to give our contribution in this move,” he said.

He added that some designers’ lack of knowledge about their rights on their patents also leads them to losing huge amounts of money from people who violate copyrights by replicating their patents.

According to the Makuza, depending on the circumstances, a person who infringes on another person’s patent rights is charged of forgery – which is criminal in nature – or unfair competition, which is civil and adjudicated at the commercial court.