IP/C/W/633/Add.4

African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO)

1. This document presents a report on main cooperation programmes and activities undertaken by ARIPO from 1 January to 20 September 2017, which are relevant to the TRIPS Agreement and other IP components, following the invitation of the Chairman of the WTO Council for TRIPS of 4 July 2017 to provide updated information on such activities. 2. Pursuant to its mandate enshrined in its constitutive text (the Lusaka Agreement of 9 December 1976), ARIPO organizes activities and programmes either solely or in conjunction with its partners such as WIPO and others. These programmes and activities are mainly aimed at assisting ARIPO's member States and Africa as a whole in intellectual property matters. For the awareness on IP matters component, ARIPO continued roving seminars in member States, but this year's flagship was the engagement of the main generators of Intellectual Property rights, i.e. the Universities and Research Institutions. A number of seminars were conducted in some Universities with the objective of raising IP awareness in the universities, colleges and research institutions, so that they can utilize the intellectual property system nationally and regionally for accruing economic benefit to the institutions, individual rights holders and the country at large. 3. The following matrix provides details on technical and financial cooperation activities relevant to the TRIPS Agreement and other IP components undertaken by ARIPO, and they cover training initiatives and awareness activities; assistance to National Intellectual Property Offices in ARIPO member States as well as potential member States; and IP related publications.