2023 has already been an involved year for BMatanga IP Attorneys. We have been on a mission, building awareness and pushing the IP agenda locally and abroad.

Here is a look at what our team has been up to!

World Intellectual Property Day 2023

“whatever a girl imagines and dreams of, she should be empowered to create and protect”- Brenda Matanga

This year’s world IP Day, was celebrated on April 26 with the theme “Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity.”  As a firm, we are committed to engaging and uplifting our local talent on their intellectual property rights. In line with that, we launched a social media ‘IP week series’ where we shone a light on Zimbabwean women who are well established in their fields and discussed the intersection of intellectual property as it relates to their craft.

Featured were singer-songwriter, mbira player and poet, Hope Masike and Chef Rumbi Shoko. In her interview with our associate, Hope Masike brought attention to the topic of music and copyright. She highlighted challenges such as lack of knowledge of the benefits of IP how artist like herself may face challenges in enforcing their rights and in gaining access to the registration of those rights.

Chef Rumbi Shoko is a chef, author, and digital content creator.  Chef’s interview with our Associate Kudzai Mushangwe covered copyright issues related to digital content and the influence of newer artificial intelligence inventions such as ChatGPT on copyrights.  To view these interviews, and our address by our Head of Practice Brenda Matanga on this year’s theme, visit our social media pages under BMatanga Intellectual Property Attorneys for Africa.

…to the Fair!

The theme for this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) was “Transformative Innovation, Global Competitiveness”. Our firm is a strong proponent of innovation and creativity, and the Fair presented a great opportunity for us to show our support for the innovation agenda in Zimbabwe. The firm was represented by our associate attorneys, Chido Gezimati and Kudzai Mushangwe who had the occasion to share ideas with and give advice to innovators on the ground, as well as to engage with innovators at university level. The ZITF was truly a showcase of Zimbabwean innovation and technology.

ZITF coincided with the World IP Day commemorations, the fanfare of which was held in the beautiful city of Bulawayo. The Companies and Intellectual Property Office of Zimbabwe (CIPZ) in conjunction with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) and AfrIPI (Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation in Africa) hosted the celebrations. The festivities were marked by a march in the Bulawayo CBD by the IP community, where we had the chance to raise our banner as a firm.

There were a series of addresses by the Chief Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property Mr Willie Mushayi, the ARIPO Director General Bemanya Twebaze, and stakeholders in the IP space in Zimbabwe. Of note, Barbara Nkala, a celebrated Zimbabwean novelist was one of the guests of honour and she shared her experience of how she navigated her career. She highlighted the hardships that resulted from copyright infringement for creatives such as herself and how it often results in loss of earnings for creators. This is still an ongoing problem that requires strict enforcement of the law. This is where we come in!

One of the biggest takeaways from the world IP day commemorations was that there are institutions that offer support for young innovators. For example, local universities and innovation hubs that are well equipped to assist young people with registration of their intellectual property. We can’t wait to see the numbers of local filings rising as more entrepreneurs get exposed to this often obscure subject and start obtaining Patents, for instance. We are of the strong view that IP should be for everyone, obtained and utilised by local entities so that many can  fully appreciate its benefits.

It was a wonderful inaugural event and commemoration of intellectual property, and our firm looks forward to supporting CIPZ in future events. We are involved!

Murky waters: AI and IP

Without realising, we have been interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) from the inception of Google, fast forward to 2022 and 2023, AI has grown in leaps and bounds such that it is able to create on its own. This year saw an upsurge in the use of artificial intelligence chat bots being used to generate artistic works such as images and music. Of particular significance, the AI generated Drake and the Weeknd song “Heart on my Sleeve” which was posted online and on streaming platforms, making huge waves. This prompted conversations around the intersection of artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights, particularly AI authorship and the legality of reproducing artists’ voices and likeness using AI and existing recordings.

Our associates Kudzai Mushangwe and Chido Gezimati were guests on the ZiFM, ZiTech radio show on 27 April discussing the topic. Key to the conversation was what the possible recourse would be in a Zimbabwean context. The discourse surrounding the intersection of AI and IP is ongoing world over and this is certainly an exciting time for the development of the law.

Our firm has always been a leading voice on IP issues, and we were glad to be part of the conversation on this fast developing and unsettled area of law.