Description
This book addresses the need to harmonise trade mark laws in Africa in view of the envisaged African common market. Economic integration cannot flourish without an effective regional legal framework. The fragmentation in trade mark protection in Africa is evidenced by the existing two sub-regional organisations,namely, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) whose members are mostly Anglophone countries and the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI) which generally caters for Francophone countries respectively.
The text not only discusses regional integration and what needs to be done if this goal is to be realised in Africa, it also focuses on the European Union and other regional integration models, such as Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) from which lessons can be drawn. It also identifies possible threats and/or challenges to the process of regional integration in Africa after Brexit. In relation to legal integration,the book uses South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Cameroon as case studies. It examines the areas of convergence and divergence between the trade mark laws under consideration.
