Amendment to ARIPO's Harare Protocol enters into force

On March 1, 2025, the amendment to the Harare Protocol on Patents and Industrial Designs of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) officially came into effect. The amendment mainly includes adjustments to the implementation rules, relevant forms and fee structure, providing applicants with a more flexible way to protect intellectual property rights.

According to the Harare Protocol, applicants only need to submit an intellectual property application to ARIPO and designate any or all of the contracting states of the protocol to obtain protection for inventions, utility models and designs. An important aspect of this revision is that applicants are allowed to add designated countries of protection before the patent is published, but patent applications that enter the ARIPO regional stage through the PCT route are not subject to this new rule.

The revised protocol further adjusts a number of time limits, including the deadlines for payment of patent licensing fees and publication fees, and the deadlines for designated countries to notify ARIPO of the decision to reject domestic patent applications. The time limits for both procedures are uniformly adjusted to 4 months. In addition, if the applicant submits a reply to the patent rejection notice of the designated country and the country does not respond within 2 months, the application will be deemed to be rejected in the jurisdiction. At the same time, the response period for search and substantive examination reports has been shortened from 6 months to 4 months.

It is worth noting that when a designated country declares in writing to ARIPO that a patent does not have effect in its territory, the patent applicant can now convert the rejected ARIPO patent application into a domestic patent application in the designated country. ARIPO will be responsible for forwarding the conversion application request to the intellectual property office of the designated country.

In addition, in order to apply for design protection, a declaration of novelty has now become a necessary condition for the acceptance of the application and must be submitted to ARIPO within 2 months from the date of application. For design applications that pass the ARIPO formal examination, the designated country must complete the selective substantive examination within 4 months of receiving the referral receipt.

In addition to procedural adjustments, this revision also comprehensively revised ARIPO's fees, and the new fee standards came into effect on March 1, 2025. The fees for patent applications have been increased, including the designation fee, substantive examination fee, and patent publication fee for ARIPO patent applications, while the design application fee has also increased significantly.

It can be seen that the revision of the Harare Protocol marks the ARIPO intellectual property application system moving towards a more complete and advanced procedural system. These changes not only improve the service quality of the ARIPO Intellectual Property Organization, but also provide applicants with more attractive and flexible methods to protect their intellectual property rights. This improvement will help promote the growth of intellectual property applications in the region.