World Intellectual Property (IP) Day message from Registrar General Wendy Pierre ‘We need to focus our efforts on unleashing the potentials which IPs hold’ |26 April 2021

Wendy Pierre

“This year’s World Intellectual Property (IP)Day celebrates the important role intellectual property rightsplay in helping SMEs to build a stronger foundation on which to become more resilient and relevant in today’s competitive markets. The theme ‘IP & SMEs: Taking your ideas to the market’, from WIPO (World Intellectual property Organisation) could not come at a better time, when economies throughout the world seek to find ways to diversify and innovate amid the challenging realities that the existing global pandemic is presenting to the world.

“Today we need to acknowledge what we have achieved in the field of IP as a country but importantly let us congratulate our SMEs for sharing their intellectual creations with us.

“SMEs continue to consolidate the position they hold in today’s economical developments, they represent a crucial share of the private business sector, they offer employments and they are the main custodian of our entrepreneurial skills and aspirations, however they remain vulnerable to a number of risks, the reason why they need to adopt careful mitigation strategies.

“On this day that we celebrate IP, we therefore want to intensify IP awareness, so that IP rights can be part of these mitigation strategies for SMEs. These rights hold so much value for all participants that we need to extract the benefits that they possess.

“Different types of IP rights exist for different kinds and stages of a business, its products and services, therefore whether your area of focus is cultural, technology, blue economy, agriculture, telecommunication, pharmaceutical, fashion or entertainment, there can be a place for you within the exciting world of IP.

“We are encouraged to note that for 2019, and even in 2020 and in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to register IPs, even more in numbers for locals, in copyright. In 2019 and 2020 we registered 115 and 92 trademarks respectively from Seychellois, compare to 599 and 559 respectively from non-Seychellois. In 2020, we registered 3 patents from our local inventors, which considering the complexity which patents’ applications and management present, is quite impressive.

“We remain convinced that much more can be achieved, especially when we compare the total IP registrations, with the number of businesses we have.

“We therefore need to focus our efforts on unleashing the potentials which IPs hold, so that we can create an environment, where our SMEs through the use of IPs, can generate greater value for their businesses.”

Wendy Pierre

Registrar General