Patents, Kleptoparasites & Innovation: A Path to Boosting Nigeria’s Technology Industry.
INTRODUCTION
A patent is one of the key ways to measure innovation and the economic development of countries.[1] In a nation, it often falls on individuals and businesses with the support of the government to make inventions and promote them. As such, the question of what is in it for businesses is answered by the incentive the government gives to patentees – a legal authority to enjoy the exclusive right to the commercialisation of the invention until the end of a 20-year period. A patent is thus a government authority or license document conferring the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.[2] (Patents).
A kleptoparasite or kleptoparasitism is a form of feeding behaviour in which an animal steals food from another animal instead of hunting or foraging for its own food. The kleptoparasite thus survives and relies on the efforts and inventions of others. (Kleptoparasites).
The terms Innovation and Invention have often been confused, even by scholars. However, cutting through the cacophonies of literature on the subject, suffice it to say that whilst invention refers to a new idea, a novel method or device, or the introduction of something new for the first time, innovation means improving or making a significant contribution, idea, method, or device. It is with innovation that this article is concerned. (Innovation).
What then is the relation between Patents, Kleptoparasites, and Innovation? How do they constitute a path to boosting Nigeria’s economy and the tech industry? It is often said, that to understand the effect of a thing, we must go back to the cause. Let us begin, then, with the problem.
THE PROBLEM
In a lecture delivered at Eko Hotels and organised by AFrIPI, it was revealed that Nigerian companies barely make 10% of the patent application filed annually.[3] This can only mean all or either of three things – Nigerians are not inventing; Nigerian technological inventions or innovations do not meet patent requirements; Nigeria awareness of patent is poor. Nigerian politicians and scholars at least agree on one thing – that Nigeria is mostly a consumption nation than a production nation.[4] This is evidenced by the heavy reliance on oil and gas as the major source of survival in the country’s governance. But what about technology?
The general applause around Nigeria’s progress in the tech-startup space has been labelled a ‘copycat’ syndrome.[5] The issue has been reiterated by foreign investors as well as legal experts looking at advising on patent registration and protection. No wonder few indigenous patent applications filed in foreign countries that promote substantive examination returns are unsuccessful. The local treatment of patent applications is a formal check on form rather than a substantive examination of the novelty (newness), inventive steps, and industrial applicability.[6]