Title of the article: Overcoming Intellectual Property Created Barriers to Information: Perspective on Nigeria as a Developing Country
SYLVESTER NDUBUISI ANYA, Ph.D. candidate, LL.M., LL.B., BL, Lecturer, Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria (UNN).
ABSTRACT
This study seeks ways to bridge the gap between the bipolar interests created by Intellectual Property (IP) law and policy, matched against “owners” on one hand and “users” on the other, and how to maintain the required balance in Nigeria. First, it highlights the ways IP creates barriers to information. Then, it suggests measures for overcoming the barriers, which include abridging the duration of IP protection, limiting the suit of IP rights and subject matter, making IP ease access to, rather than create artificial scarcity of, information, making freedom of thought sacrosanct using double or multiple patents and licences on simultaneous inventions, building traditional defences into the digital information environment, and harmonising the emerging information licensing environment with the public policy. Finally, Nigeria and other developing countries, especially in Africa, are urged to adopt and localise the Adelphi Charter on Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property 2005, which has been a catalyst for influencing the rethinking of IP law in Europe.