Mauritius Officially Joins Harare Protocol, Expanding African Regional IP Integration

Release Time：2025-06-05 16:56Author：Views：12

During the 4th Heads of Intellectual Property Offices Conference (HIPOC), the Republic of Mauritius formally deposited its Instrument of Accession to the Harare Protocol on Patents, Utility Models, and Industrial Designs with Mr. Bemanya Twebaze, Director General of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), on May 27. This accession makes Mauritius the 21st Contracting State to the Protocol, marking the expansion of Africa's regional intellectual property cooperation framework.

As of May 2025, the Contracting States to the Harare Protocol include:
Botswana, Eswatini, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cabo Verde, and Mauritius (21 countries in total).

About the Harare Protocol

The Harare Protocol is a regional agreement established in 1982 to build an intellectual property protection network for English-speaking African countries. It derives its name from Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, where the final signing took place in 1982. Its legal foundation integrates three key international conventions:

The Agreement on the Creation of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) (1976, Zambia)

Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883)

Patent Cooperation Treaty (1970)

Core Value: The Protocol’s significance lies in its unified procedure for IP protection—enabling enterprises seek protection for inventions, or utility models, or industrial designs across all Contracting States through a single application, significantly reducing the costs of cross-border innovation protection.

Information source: https://www.aripo.org/news/Mauritius+Accedes+to+the+Harare+Protocol-1748463914

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