eliminating unfair competition and ensuring fair remuneration to right holders. The profitability of the
innovative and creative industry is an important factor in encouraging investments of both financial and human
capital. As such, while ensuring access to the result of innovation and creativity is critical, the enforcement of
IPRs must ensure fair and equitable remuneration to innovators and actors in the creative industries. Some of
the key measures required will include establishing workable linkages between research and development
institutions, universities and the private sector and promoting development-focused IP courses at all levels of
education.
POLICY OBJECTIVE VI: Enhance the protection of traditional knowledge and facilitate
equitable access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing
The main aim here is to promote and support the development of relevant legal systems and institutions for the
protection of traditional knowledge and to ensure prior-informed consent and benefit-sharing for access to
genetic resources in Rwanda. The legal systems and institutional framework should among others be aimed at:
recognising the value of traditional knowledge and responding to the needs of the knowledge holders;
promoting respect for traditional knowledge and its conservation and preservation including repression
of unfair and inequitable uses of the knowledge;
promoting innovation and creativity and overall community development including facilitating
legitimate trade in traditional knowledge-based goods and services; and
Preventing biopiracy.
4. Analysis
The TRIPS Agreement calls on countries to enforce comprehensive minimum standards of IPR protection on a
nondiscriminatory basis. It also has provisions relating to the transfer of technology:
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Article 7 notes that IPRs should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and the transfer
and dissemination of technology.
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Article 8.2 recognises that countries may wish to adopt policies to prevent the abuse of IPRs by rights
holders or the use of practices that “adversely affect the international transfer of technology.”
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Article 66.2 calls on developed country WTO members to provide incentives to their enterprises and
institutions to promote technology transfer to least-developed countries (LDCs).
For a LDC like Rwanda, utilising these provisions in order to promote technology transfer will be crucial to the
success of its IP Policy. For this to take place, there must be an understanding of how technology transfer takes
place and how Rwanda can facilitate this transfer.
4.1 Technology transfer
Market transactions in technology are hampered by three major problems: (i) asymmetric information, (ii)
market power, and (iii) externalities. 4
(i) Asymmetric Information
Technology transfer involves exchange of information between those that have it and those that do not. The
former cannot fully reveal their knowledge without destroying the basis for trade, creating a problem of
asymmetric information—buyers cannot fully determine the value of the information before buying it. This can
lead to large transaction costs that stifle market-based technology transfer. In the international context,
4
Hoekman, Maskus and Saggi (2004) “Transfer of Technology to Developing Countries: Unilateral and Multilateral Policy Options”
Working Paper PEC2004-0003, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder
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