Message from PS of Trade, Cillia Mangroo to mark World Intellectual Property Day
April 26, 2021
Creative minds create new opportunities!
The ever-changing business environment fuels new inventions and ways of trading, bringing about innovative products and services to satisfy consumer preferences. Protecting these inventions, opens doors for trade beyond their national borders and thus underlines the importance of using Intellectual Property (IP) for businesses, especially small and medium enterprises.
In Seychelles, being a small economy, the use of IP is relevant, if not more so, for not only protecting creativity but also as a means for wealth creation. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about new ways of doing business in order to get goods and services to the clients, which in turn has increased the range of products and services available to the public.
This year’s theme for World Intellectual Property Day is: IP and SMEs: Taking your ideas to Market. This is a theme which resonates well with the current situation and the developments we are seeing in the markets. We encourage our small and medium enterprises to make use of the different tools that is available under the IP regime and protect their rights whilst knowing their obligations.
It is for this reason that the Trade Department together with the Registrar General’s Office in collaboration with the US Embassy, will be organising a virtual workshop in May to sensitise enterprises on the benefits of IP and the obligations that comes with it, “because without the creativity and innovation involved in bringing goods and services to life, what would you have to trade?”