Nigeria

Patent protection is available via a national filing. Although it is a member of PCT, Nigeria has not amended its laws to implement the PCT. Accordingly, it is not certain whether valid patent protection can be obtained via a PCT national phase application in Nigeria. However, in practice PCT national phase applications are being accepted and processed through to grant by the Nigerian Patent Office.

Foreign applicants must be represented by a local agent.

An invention is patentable if it is new or results from inventive activity and is capable of industrial application.

The following are not patentable:

• Plant or animal varieties, or essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals (other than microbiological processes and their products)
• Inventions the publication or exploitation of which would be contrary to public order or morality
• Principles and discoveries of a scientific nature.

An invention is new if it does not form part of the state of the art. The state of the art means everything that has been made available to the public anywhere by use, publication, or in any other way prior to the filing date or the priority date.

Applications are subjected to formal examination only, which takes place automatically. There is no examination as to novelty, and if the formal requirements are satisfied, a patent will be granted in due course.

The term of a patent obtained in Nigeria is 20 years. Annual renewal fees are payable, and a six month grace period is available.

• Copyright Act no 43 of 1988 (Chapter 68, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990) as amended by Copyright Amendment Decrees no 98 of 1992 and no 42 of 1999
• Copyright (Security Devices) Regulations, 1999
• Copyright (Video Rental) Regulations, 1999
• Copyright (Collecting Societies) Regulations, 1993

On 6 April 2022, the National Assembly passed the Copyright Bill.

Nigeria is a member of the Berne Convention, the Rome Convention, and the WTO/TRIPS.

Note: Reliable and up-to-date information on the copyright laws and their application in individual countries on the African Continent is not always generally available. The commentary given below is based on the information available at the time of writing.

The Act provides for the following works to be eligible for copyright protection:

• Literary works
• Musical works
• Artistic works
• Cinematograph films
• Sound recordings
• Broadcasts.

Literary works are further defined to include:

• Novels, stories, poetic works
• Plays, stage directions, film scenarios, broadcasting scripts
• Choreographic works
• Computer programs
• Textbooks, treatises, essays, articles
• Encyclopaedias, dictionaries, directories
• Letters, reports, memoranda
• Lectures, addresses and sermons
• Law reports, excluding decisions of courts
• Written tables and compilations of data.

Artistic works are further defined to include:

• Paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs, woodcuts, engravings, prints
• Maps, plans, diagrams
• Works of sculpture
• Photographs
• Works of architecture
• Works of artistic craftsmanship.

A literary, musical or artistic work shall not be eligible unless sufficient effort has been expended to make the work original, and the work has been fixed in a definite medium of expression. There is no requirement for registration. For a work to qualify for protection, the author must be a citizen of Nigeria, or domiciled or ordinarily resident in Nigeria. Alternatively, the work must have been made or first published in Nigeria.

Copyright protection is also extended to persons who are citizens of, or domiciled or resident in, a country which is a party of a treaty of which Nigeria is also a party, and which provides for copyright protection; or to works first published in such a country, or by the United Nations or the Organisation of African Unity.

The ownership of copyright in a work initially vests in the author, unless the work was done in terms of a commission or in the course of the author’s employment, in which case it vests in the person who commissioned the work or in the employer. The ownership in this context refers to the economic rights inherent in copyright. The economic rights may be transferred or licensed.

The author shall also have the so-called moral rights pertaining to the work; these include the right to claim authorship and to be recognised as the author, and the right to object to distortion or mutilation of the work, or any derogatory action, which would be prejudicial to his honour or reputation. The moral rights are not alienable and may not be transferred during the life of the author.

In the case of literary, musical and artistic works (except photographs) the copyright endures for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years.

In the case of all other works, i.e. cinematograph films and photographs, sound recordings and broadcasts, the duration is 50 years from the end of the year in which the work was made or was made available to the public.

Copyright confers on the owner the exclusive right to control the doing in Nigeria of any of the following acts:

• To reproduce of the work in any material form
• To publish the work
• To perform the work in public
• To produce, reproduce, perform or publish a translation of the work
• To make a cinematograph film or record of the work
• To distribute to the public copies of the work, by way of sale, rental, lease, hire
• To broadcast or communicate the work to the public
• To make an adaptation or translation of the work
• To do any of the above acts in respect of an adaptation or translation.

The following acts are amongst a long list of acts excluded from the rights of the owner:

• The doing of any of the listed acts by way of fair dealing for purposes of scientific research, private use, criticism and review
• The inclusion in a film or broadcast of an artistic work situated in a public place
• The reproduction and distribution of copies of an artistic work situated in a public place
• Certain usages for teaching in schools or universities.

Copyright is transmissible by way of assignment and may be licensed. No assignment and no exclusive licence shall have effect unless it is in writing and signed by the assignor or the licensor.

Copyright is infringed by any person who, without the licence of the owner, does or causes to be done any of the acts reserved for the copyright owner, or who imports an article which he knows to be an infringing article otherwise than for private use.

Infringement proceedings may be instituted by the owner; the relief may include damages, injunction, account of profits, delivery up of infringing articles, etc.

Certain infringing acts constitute criminal offences, unless the offender can prove that he acted in good faith.

The registration of a novel design gives to the owner the right to preclude all others from using the design in order to derive a commercial benefit. Design protection is available by way of a national filing.

An industrial design means any combination of lines or colours or both, and any three-dimensional form, whether or not associated with colours, if it is intended by the creator to be used as a model or pattern to be multiplied by an industrial process and is not intended solely to obtain a technical result.

An application must be filed before the design has been made available to the public anywhere by description, use, or in any other way, unless it can be shown that the creator of the design could not have known that it had been made available. Display of the design at an officially recognised exhibition does not destroy novelty, if the application for registration is filed within six months of the exhibition.

Examination is conducted by the Registrar to ensure compliance with the formal requirements and also to determine whether the design is contrary to public order/morality. If satisfied that the conditions for registration have been met, but without examining the application to determine if it is novel, the Registrar will register the design and issue the registration certificate.

The initial term of the design registration is five years, which period is extendible upon payment of renewal fees for two further five year terms. A grace period of six months is available for payment of renewal fees.  In practice renewal payments are accepted and processed even after the six month grace period. However, the validity of late payments is uncertain.