Search IP Protection Available Per Country

Zimbabwe is a member of the Paris Convention, ARIPO (Harare Protocol), the PCT and the WTO/TRIPS.

Patent protection is available by way of a national filing or via an ARIPO or PCT application designating Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has implemented the Harare Protocol (which regulates patent and design filings in ARIPO) in its national law, thereby giving valid patent protection to applicants seeking to obtain a patent via an ARIPO application.

Since Zimbabwe is a member of the Paris Convention, a national application may claim priority based on an earlier application in a convention country.

Zimbabwe has also implemented the provisions of the PCT in its national law, thereby recognising and affording valid patent protection in the case of international PCT applications designating Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is a member of the Paris Convention, ARIPO (Harare Protocol), and the WTO/TRIPS.

Design protection is available by a national filing or via an ARIPO application designating Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has implemented the Harare Protocol (which regulates patent and design filings in ARIPO) in its national laws, thereby giving valid design protection to applicants seeking to obtain a design registration via an ARIPO application.

Zimbabwe is a member of the Berne Convention and the WTO/TRIPS.

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

• literary works
• musical works
• artistic works
• audiovisual works
• sound recordings
• broadcasts
• programme-carrying signals
• published editions.

Literary works are further defined to include:

• dramatic works, stage directions, film scenarios, broadcasting scripts
• letters, reports, memoranda
• lectures, addresses and sermons
• computer programs
• tables and compilations of data.

Artistic works are further defined to include:

• graphic works, photographs, sculptures or collages (irrespective of artistic quality)
• works of architecture
• works of artistic craftsmanship.

Graphic works are further defined to include:

• paintings, drawings, diagrams, maps, charts or plans
• engravings, etchings, printed circuits, lithographs, woodcuts.

The following items and documents are not eligible for copyright:

• ideas, procedures, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, discoveries, facts or figures
• news of the day, items of press information
• speeches of a political nature, or delivered in the course of legal proceedings
• official texts of enactments or Bills
• official records of judicial proceedings
• notices, advertisements published in the Gazette
• applications, specifications published in the Patent and Trade Marks Journal
• entries in any register kept in terms of an enactment.

Zimbabwe is, as yet, not a member of the UPOV Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Plant breeders’ rights can be obtained under the Zimbabwean Plant Breeders’ Rights Act.

The effect of protection by way of a plant breeder’s right is that the holder of the right is entitled to prevent anyone from selling, reproducing or multiplying reproductive material of the protected plant or a plant essentially derived therefrom.

Convention priority

Priority can be claimed from an earlier application in a UPOV member country.

Duration

A plant breeder’s right endures for 20 years from the date of grant. A five year extension can be obtained in exceptional circumstances.