The Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) has partnered with the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) to produce a model Intellectual Property (IP) Policy document.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the policy document is meant to guide and protect IP of scholars in the Nigerian universities.
Speaking at the presentation of the policy document on Thursday in Abuja, the Chairman, CVCNU, Prof. Samuel Edoumiekumo, said the initiative would help in maintaining IP assets and resolve conflicts of interest and other disputes.
Edoumiekumo said that the document would help academics who are into research to know their rights within their university environment and also assist them in protecting their findings.
According to him, over the years, there have been several attempts by the NCC to ensure that academic institutions properly codify their IP policies to conform to world IP format.
“For the first time, we are coming out with this intellectual property policy. It will help those in academics who are into research to know their rights while doing that in the university environment and also to protect their findings.
“So it is a policy that everyone who is innovative will like, but we don’t want a situation where someone has invented something and then is taking to the market and others to just copy it and nothing is done to them.
“And so the committee in collaboration with the copyright commission, we have come up with this beautiful document called the intellectual property policy, which will really help our colleagues to be able to protect their inventions,’’ he said.
The chairman added that the committee was also partnering with the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) to get patent for innovators.
He called for more collaboration and assistance from NOTAP, so that by working together the country would progress.
Edoumiekumo, therefore, urged universities to develop their policies based on their particular operating environment and upload their final approval to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) portal for global access.
Also, the Chairman, Governing Board of NCC, Prof. Esther Sylvanus-Pepple, said that IP protection would be worthless if it does not translate to benefits of creators, authors, innovators and add value to the society.
Sylvanus-Pepple called for the need to promote the strategic and balanced management of IP system and the subsector in the value chain.
She called on universities to adopt the model IP policy as part of their internal framework to guide the institutions, staff, students and visitors.
“The university system is very lucrative and lecturers and students are highly intelligent and they do a lot of works, but there has been no articulated way of protecting their resources which is their IP.
“And for those who are not able to access the portal, their resources will be lost; they will not be able to enjoy the gift that comes from their intellectual property.
“So we want all the universities to key into the IP model to provide the framework needed to protect the IP of Nigerian creators and authors,’’ she said.
The chairman pledged to give customised support to Nigerian Universities as they were not all strong on the same issues.
She called on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to make it mandatory requirement for accreditation that every university has an IP policy.
Meanwhile, the NOTAP Director General, Dr Dan Ibrahim, described the policy as an excellent document, saying it would gradually phase out imported technology.
Ibrahim also called for more research funding that would translate to an efficient research output.
According to him, the IP policy would spur innovation in economic value and was equally a sure way of making contribution to the country’s economy. (NAN)