African Regional Intellectual Property Organization
("ARIPO") provides a useful regional system to obtain
patent protection in African countries which are contracting states
of ARIPO. ARIPO is empowered by the Harare Protocol ("the
Protocol") to grant patents and to register industrial designs
on behalf of contracting states in accordance with the provisions
of the Protocol. The system enables an applicant to file a single
application at the ARIPO offices designating one or more
contracting states. Upon grant, the application culminates in a
bundle of corresponding national patents in the designated
contracting states. The current contracting states are: Botswana,
Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique,
Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia,
Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. During
December 2016, ARIPO's Administrative Council adopted important
amendments to the Protocol and its Regulations, which
