TRADEMARKS

Types of Trademarks registrable

“Single-class” system applicable – A separate application is required for each class of goods. There are provisions for the registration of CERTIFICATION MARKS and SERIES MARKS.
There are no provisions for the registration of DEFENSIVE MARKS.

Documents required for trademark registration

• Power of Attorney (not legalized).
• Prints of the mark
• Priority document (if applicable), with verified English translation
• Details of the applicant

Renewals

The duration of registration is 10 years from the date of application and renewable every 7 years

s part of the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar is a member of the Paris Convention, ARIPO (Harare Protocol), the PCT, and the WTO/TRIPS.

Tanzania comprises two countries, ie Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Patent protection must separately be obtained in each territory.  In what follows, the securing of patent protection in Zanzibar is dealt with.

Patent protection is obtainable in Zanzibar via a national filing or via an ARIPO application designating Tanzania. Unlike Tanganyika, Zanzibar has not yet recognised the Harare Protocol (which regulates patent and design filings in ARIPO) in its national laws. Accordingly, it seems uncertain that enforceable rights will be obtained in Zanzibar via an ARIPO application designating Tanzania.

Unlike Tanganyika, Zanzibar has also not introduced provisions in its law to recognise and provide for PCT applications. Although Zanzibar is a member of PCT, it is not clear whether valid patent protection could be obtained via a PCT application.

Filing Requirements

Patents of Invention (Non-PCT)

• Power of Attorney (simply signed) (can be late filed, no set deadline)
• Specification, claims and abstract in English (required on the day of filing)
• Formal drawings, if applicable (required on the day of filing)
• Assignment of Invention (can be late filed, no set deadline)
• Priority document with verified English translation (can be late filed within three months)

National Phase PCT Application

• Power of Attorney (simply signed) (can be late filed, no set deadline)
• Specification, claims and abstract in English (required on the day of filing)
• Formal drawings, if applicable (required on the day of filing)
• Assignment of Invention (can be late filed, no set deadline)
• Copy of Published International Application (required on the day of filing)
• Copy of International Search Report (can be late filed, no set deadline)
• Copy of International Preliminary Report on Patentability (can be late filed, no set deadline)

Note

For both PCT and non-PCT applications, if relevant, the description must contain a clear identification of the origin of genetic or biological resources as well as of any element of traditional knowledge collected in the territory of Tanganyika and that were directly or indirectly used in the making of the claimed invention without the prior informed consent of its individual or collective creators.

Grant

The term of a patent is twenty years from the filing date.

Renewal

For PCT and National patents renewal fees fall due annually commencing on the first anniversary of the filing date.
Re-registration of UK patents (if applicable) – no renewal fees are payable.

As part of the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar is a member of the Paris Convention, ARIPO (Harare Protocol), and the WTO/TRIPS.

Although Zanzibar has enacted legislation (as part of its Industrial Property Act of 2008) to provide for the registration and protection of industrial designs, it appears that regulations to implement this legislation have not yet been promulgated. According, it is currently not possible to obtain design protection by way of a national filing.

Since Zanzibar is a member of ARIPO, the registration of a design may be effected via an ARIPO application designating Tanzania. However, in the absence of a duly implemented national system, it is not clear whether enforceable rights will be obtained.

The general legislative provisions relating to industrial designs, as contained in the Industrial Property Act of 2008, are set out below.

As indicated above, it does not seem that a national design filing is possible at the time of writing. An ARIPO application designating Tanzania may be a way of obtaining protection, although this is not clear.

DESIGNS

There is no local system for registration of Designs in Tanzania.

However, Tanzania has ratified Agreement on the Creation of the African Regional Industrial Property Organization (ARIPO), 1979 (effective for Tanzania as from 12 October 1983); and the Protocol on Patent and Industrial Designs within the Framework of African Region Industrial Property Organization (the Harare Protocol), 1982) (effective for Tanzania as from 01 September 1999).

Design applications may therefore be filed through ARIPO

Documents Required

• Power of Attorney
• Drawings, photographs or other adequate graphic representations of the article embodying the industrial design
• Certified copy of priority document, if priority claimed
• Verified Translation of Priority Document if not in English
• Assignment

Duration and Renewal:

Design registration is valid for an initial term of five years from the filing date, which is renewable upon payment of the required fees for two further terms of five years each. A grace period of three months is provided for late payment of the renewal fee.

As part of the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar is a member of the Berne Convention and the WTO/TRIPS.

The law provides for copyright in respect of original intellectual creations in the form of literary and artistic works, including:

• books, pamphlets, articles, scientific and artistic writings and other writings, including computer programs
• speeches, lectures, addresses, sermons and other works
• dramatic and dramatic-musical works, choreographic works, pantomimes, and other works created for stage productions
• musical works
• audiovisual works
• works of architecture
• works of painting, drawing, sculpture, engraving, lithography and tapestry and other works of fine art
• photographic works
• works of applied art
• illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science.

Derivative works shall also be protected, including:

• translations, adaptations, arrangements and other transformations of works
• collections of works, compilations of data (databases), collections of expression of folklore.

Excluded from protection are:

• ideas, procedures, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, discoveries or mere data
• official texts of a legislative, administrative or legal nature.