Practice Overview
With Ethiopia’s improving economic and investment environment, the rapid expansion of electronic transactions, and the growth of digital markets and payment systems, authors, inventors, startups, and multinational businesses are increasingly seeking to secure, commercialize, and enforce intellectual property rights. We maintain a robust IP practice group that focuses exclusively on IP services, assisting clients in the registration, maintenance, commercialization, and enforcement of intellectual property rights across all categories.
Our practice also covers national and international regulatory regimes relating to technology areas such as data privacy and data protection, artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Metaverse, cryptocurrencies, fintech, cloud and quantum computing, and other emerging technologies. Furthermore, we support clients in telecommunications law, internet law, and cyberspace regulation.
Our Services
- Registration, renewal, maintenance, and commercialization of trademarks, patents, utility model certificates, and industrial designs.
- Invalidation and cancellation of registered IP rights.
- Voluntary copyright registration and maintenance.
- Judicial and administrative enforcement of IP rights.
- IP due diligence.
- Negotiating, drafting, reviewing, and registering IP licensing and assignment agreements, as well as technology transfer agreements.
- Negotiating, drafting, and reviewing franchising agreements.
- Negotiating, drafting, and reviewing material transfer and access and benefit-sharing (ABS) agreements for genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.
- Counseling clients on telecom, fintech, data protection, and technology laws.
Selected Experience
- Registered and maintained more than 4,500 IP rights.
- Drafted, reviewed, and registered numerous trademark licensing and assignment agreements.
- Enforced trademark rights for several clients from the United States, China, and various European countries.
- Assisted diverse foreign businesses with data protection and technology matters.
Brief Overview of the Ethiopian Legal and Institutional Framework on Intellectual Property and Technology
Ethiopia is currently engaged in WTO accession negotiations and is not yet a party to the TRIPS Agreement. For many years, it had not signed major WIPO-administered IP treaties. However, Ethiopia has ratified the Marrakesh Treaty, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, and the Madrid Protocol (in late 2024), as well as the AfCFTA IP Protocol in 2019.
Domestically, Ethiopia has enacted laws on copyright and related rights, patents and utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, trade names, plant varieties, genetic resources, and traditional knowledge. Trade secrets are protected through a combination of competition law, tort law, and criminal law.
The Ethiopian Intellectual Property Authority is responsible for registering most IP rights, while the Ministry of Agriculture (Agricultural Authority) issues plant breeders’ certificates. The Biodiversity Institute grants ABS permits and registers material transfer agreements. IP rights are enforced through the courts, while the Customs Commission is empowered to take border measures.
Key Contacts
Dr. Biruk Haile
Legal Director
biruk@mehrteableul.com
+251-115-159-978