The Ministry of Trade and Commerce (MINICOM) plans to launch a campaign to encourage the public to register their copyrights of creative arts and inventions.

This follows the winding up of the International Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Week that ended on Monday,
According to Kaliza Karuretwa, the Director General in charge of Investment Climate and Intellectual Property at MINICOM, registration of the copyrights will promote originality.

"We are basically informing artists, musicians and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that they can fully register their intellectual property against piracy, counterfeit material and distortion of their property,” Karuretwa said.

"This protection is enforceable by law to encourage creativity, skills development and product invention by Rwandan citizens.

The Intellectual Property Law is relatively new in Rwanda and was only passed by Parliament in December 2009.

Karuretwa added that the Intellectual Property policy that was passed by Cabinet last month, will facilitate and ease implementation of the law.

"In our campaigns, we are going to inform the artistes and SMEs how they can accrue financial benefits from registering rights to their ideas and property as well as how they can benefit the country through their inventions,” Karuretwa said.

In a bid to strengthen the IP law, MINICOM invited specialists from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) of the UN who trained MINICOM staff during the IP week

"We will also encourage artistes and SMEs to join Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) where they can register their property and administer their rights as a group for collective benefits,” Karuretwa said.

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