Tawanda Mahanzu, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur and inventor
("the applicant"), has approached the Intellectual
Property Tribunal of Zimbabwe ("the IPT") on an urgent
basis to challenge the alleged practice at the Zimbabwean Patent
Office ("ZIPO") of excluding certain types of inventions
from patentability.
The applicant lodged a patent application with ZIPO on 28
November 2018. The patent application is directed to an invention
entitled "Banknote Possession Tracking and Deposit
Enforcement Methods". The invention relates to business
processes, implemented by computer systems, for solving the issue
of physical cash shortages. The patent specification essentially
describes the use of tokens, exchangeable for banknotes and coins,
which can be used to track banknote and coin possession.
