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afrol News, 26 March - At organising a Panafrican conference on intellectual property rights in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian government states its dedication to these rights as an important factor in development and technology transfer. The government was to launch a campaign to make these rights more known. Mrs. Lalla Mariem Mint Moulaye Idriss, Secretary-General of the Mauritanian Ministry of Mines and industry, opened the Nouakchott conference on Monday, which is organised by the African Organisation of Intellectual Property (OAPI). Idriss announced her government's dedication towards patents, author's copyright, protection against unfair competition, trademarks and other intellectual property embraced by the 1977 OAPI Treaty of Bangui and by Mauritanian national law. According to Mrs. Idriss, the respect of intellectual property plaid an "essential role in attracting foreign investment," and therefore should be emphasised strongly by African governments. It also presented a necessary "regulation of the competition between companies," she was quoted saying by the Mauritanian governmental news agency AMI. Referring to Mauritanian President Ould Sid' Ahmed Taya and his visions for technological transfer to enhance development in Africa, Idriss pointed out that this process had obliged the Mauritanian government to "deepen and renew our knowledge" of the international application of intellectual property rights. She told the conference that the Prime Minister's office was preparing for a campaign to enhance the comprehension of intellectual property in Mauritania. There was more a lack of knowledge than of goodwill, because the obedience to these rights should be seen as a resource, she held, which would "ensure the development of the national economy and companies." The respect of intellectual property rights has been a major dispute between industrialised countries and developing countries for decades. Recent disputes over the access to cheap, generic AIDS drugs from India or Brazil have only highlighted this dispute. OAPI (headquartered in Yaoundé, Cameroon), on the other hand, is trying to make its member state valorise "all the possibilities offered by patent rights", in order to make "the legal framework attractive to private investment" and encourage "creativity and transfer of technology." The perceived lax implementation of intellectual property rights in Africa is generally believed to have slowed down the much anticipated technology transfer from the industrialised world.
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