HISTORY OF OAPI

Until 1962, patent rights in the majority of francophone member states of OAPI, were governed by French laws.

The French National Patent Rights Institute (INPI) was the National Authority for each of these states, then grouped within the French Union (Union Française). The majority of the French Union member countries having become independent in 1960, found it necessary to create a body of their common territory, in respect of conventions on patent rights.

This creation found its legal justification in article 19 of the Paris Convention for the protection of patent rights, which states that countries, which are signatories to this convention, serve the right to undertake separately among themselves, specific agreements for the protection of patent rights, so long as these arrangements are not in contradiction with the provisions of the said convention.

It is on the basis of this provision that 12 African countries together decided to create a single body to act as the national patent rights authority for each of them. The African and Malagasy Patent Rights Authority (OAMPI) was thus born on 13th September 1962 by the agreement known as the 'Libreville Agreement'.

The conditions of the Libreville Agreement were based on three fundamental principles:

• the adoption of a uniform legislation by the putting in place and application of common administrative procedures resulting from a uniform system of patent rights protection.
• The creation of a common authority, as the organization serves as a national patent rights protection department, for each of the member states.
• The centralization of procedures, as the existence of a uniform legislation and of a common authority naturally created for the centralization of procedures such that a single title issued comprised as many independent national rights as member countries.

As concerns territorial applicability, the Libreville Agreement covered the territories of African countries of French expression and culture.

Concerning the material applicability, the items covered by the Libreville Agreement of 13th September 1962 were patents, trademarks or trade names and industrial drawings or models.

The following countries were signatories to the Libreville Agreement:

• Federal Republic of Cameroon
• Central African Republic
• Republic of Congo
• Republic of Côte d'Ivoire
• Republic of Dahomey
• Republic of Upper Volta
• Republic of Gabon
• Republic of Mauritania
• Republic of Senegal
• Republic of Chad
• Malagasy Republic
• Republic of Niger

The withdrawal of the Malagasy Republic for reasons of sovereign judgment, the need to cover all rights items, notably models, trade names, products and service trademarks, the need to better involve patent rights in development, the desire to be the seed of a larger integration, brought the founding states to revise the Libreville Agreement and to create the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) by the adoption of a new convention signed in Bangui on 2nd March 1977.

The Bangui Agreement revising the Libreville Agreement, henceforth legislates patent rights in each of the 16 member states which now make up the OAPI territory. These 16 member states are:

• Benin
• Burkina Faso
• Cameroon
• Central Africa
• Congo
• Cote d'Ivoire
• Equatorial Guinea
• Gabon
• Guinea
• Guinea Bissau
• Mali
• Mauritania
• Niger
• Senegal
• Chad
• Togo

To date, the OAPI territory covers a surface area of 7.755.967 km square and has about 100 million inhabitants