Patents and Inventors in Kenya

Abstract

After the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, citizens have been able to identify their rights that the Constitution of Kenya 2010. The rights include the right to have their intellectual property rights protected as stated in Article 40(5). Inventors in Kenya are not well sensitized and aware of the rights that Constitution of Kenya, 2010 gives them. The main objective is to identify the challenges that the inventors encounter when acquiring a patent for their work and the time that it takes for the patent to be granted to the inventor. These will also bring up the level of awareness that the inventors have on the rights that the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 provides for them. This paper analyses the challenges that the inventors encounter when acquiring a patent for their work and the time that it takes for the patent to be granted. This paper seeks to analyze the challenges that the inventors have encountered since the promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 to date which clearly protects their intellectual property, which includes the patents. Many inventors in Kenya do not know what patent involves since they are not aware of the rights that patents gives them and how it benefits their invention. This is probably because the process of acquiring patent is long, tedious and inadequate intellectual property awareness despite of it provided for in Constitution, which states that every citizen has a right for their intellectual property rights to be protected by the government, but it does not clearly specify the rights . Therefore, there is a need for the inventors to be aware of the specific rights that they get when their work is granted a patent. This study employs doctrinal research methodology to illustrate the challenges that inventors face in the process of trying to register their patents so that they can know and own their patents rights. By reviewing case laws as well as legislative and institutional framework, this paper demonstrates there is gap in the awareness of the patents among the inventors with discourages creativity and reduces productivity of the inventors since they will not earn some profits from their inventions.