2.1 Rationale for intellectual property
The rationale for having rights over ideas and their use is to create and retain incentives for creation. For
example for patents, firms investing substantial resources in research and development (R&D) to come up with
new ideas for their products and production processes – whether drugs, computer software or machinery –
expect a return on this investment. If they had no rights over these new ideas, other firms could quickly copy
and exploit them for profitable advantage. Firms that come up with ideas would therefore have no incentive to
have done so in the first place.
The rationale for IPRs is similar in the area of copyright. Performers, artists and broadcasters need to retain
incentives to create original ideas and to benefit from them. Without these incentives, the cultural output of
these individuals may be significantly lower leaving the whole of society poorer as a result.
While rights must be protected, the optimal time period for this should be finite. Since for the greater good and
the improvement of public welfare, the ideas produced may need to be widely available in order for science,
technology and commerce to progress and create new wealth. The finite period of patent protection is usually
set somewhere between five and twenty years, while protection for copyrights such as for a novel or song can
last up to fifty years.
The ideal IPR system creates incentives for firms to innovate, without limiting access for consumers and
follow-on innovators. It must attain the right balance in a world that is rapidly changing so that innovators can
invest in their own ideas and creations, while benefiting by “standing on the shoulders of giants” in the form of
the ideas of others.
2.2 The international context: WIPO & TRIPS Agreement
The IP Policy and Law have been developed in the context of international agreements on intellectual property
– in particular, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Trade Organisation’s
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which provide guidelines for
unifying countries’ policies on IPRs and are the broad framework within which countries discuss and resolve
disputes around IPRs.
Rwanda acceded to the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in 1983,
as well as the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Bern Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, in the same year. These conventions were brought under the WTO’s
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