The Travelogue of An IP Scholar

African Intellectual Property & Traveling

Ibn Battutah stated in THE TRAVELS OF IBN BATTUTAH that "Traveling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller"

In this episode I reiterate the sentiments of Ibn Battutah, that Traveling from my experience and recordings can impel great IP scholarship, expressions and knowledge.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, welcome to another episode of Sami'i reporting.

(00:08):
This is African Intellectual Property Jurisprudence.
Today, I'm going to be talking about a special subject which I will title today's talk,
African Intellectual Property and Traveling.

(00:34):
A short title will be the Travelogue of an IP Scholar.
I have been traveling, fortunate to travel all around the world, and I've discovered

(00:54):
that as an IP Scholar, we could learn or benefit if we are really sensitive to it or we pay
attention to it on our traveling experience.
That is why I decided I will use the next few episodes of this podcast to talk about

(01:19):
my travelogue.
My experiences and its intersection with traveling as an IP Scholar.
Last year, I did a lot of traveling around Africa.
I traveled to Nigeria, Calabar City, beautiful city.

(01:44):
I was in Accra in Ghana.
I was in Kigali in Rwanda.
I was in Cape Town in South Africa.
I was in the Addis Ababa, and Gondar.
Addis Ababa is one city and Gondar is another city in Ethiopia.

(02:07):
Those are the few places I travelled to.
There are others but I restrict for this episode my experiences as it relates to intellectual
property, how it intersects with intellectual property to these five countries, Nigeria,

(02:28):
Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa and Ethiopia.
Now, why is this really necessary or important?
It is an IP Scholar, particularly an IP Scholar that one of my key areas of research and teaching

(02:50):
are traditional cultural expressions, copyright, especially digital copyright and geographical
indications.
So traveling around Africa, there are certain common denominators I saw or I noticed that

(03:12):
could spark or impel good intellectual property, literature, scholarship, writing and research.
I discovered that most of the cities have something unique which under the subject of
geographical indication could be of interest to a scholar probably you are looking for

(03:34):
what to write on or research to do.
For instance, in the city of Cape Town, they have very beautiful wildlife reserves and games
and beautiful animals in the wild and lions, elephants, springbok, some wildlife you

(04:05):
might not even find in other parts of the world.
And the fauna and the flora are unique, the topography, the environment, the vegetations
are really unique and I'm sure most of that vegetation and most of those flora might be

(04:30):
unique geographical indications in terms of the plants there, in terms of the food.
And also in Gondar, which is an ancient city in Ethiopia, there's beautiful hills, some

(04:57):
natural architectural landscape, like one of my friends said is "sculpture from the gods,"
I mean some uniqueness about the soil, the color of the soil and the food of course we

(05:17):
all know about Injera, the Teff, a popular Ethiopian food that years ago was a subject
of patent dispute between a fellow from Netherlands and Ethiopian people.

(05:40):
In Nigeria, Calabar, I witnessed some good traditional indigenous artwork in terms of
traditional displays of their dances, their EKPE, masquerade and EKPO (Nnabo), the songs, which

(06:09):
I might have to post some of the pictures at the end of this podcast online in the streaming
channels that this podcast is going to be streamed on.
Now in Kigali, I saw the beautiful city side landscape, the cultural locations, the museum,

(06:41):
the sacred genocide museum and we ate a lot of traditional food that is unique to the
people of Rwanda.
So now we are in the phase where we should promote African creativity and African ingenuity.

(07:10):
So, as IP scholars, I would encourage us as we travel especially to these places and more
of them still, you know, I'm going to talk about NTV in Uganda, another episode.
So, if we take time and probably do a few research on most of these events and most of these natural

(07:42):
creations that are embedded in this series, we could bring alive all the stories we have
been trying to tell in the pages of literature papers and we could even do more like a popular

(08:03):
author once wrote, Ibn Battuta said, traveling, it leaves you speechless, then turns you into

(08:25):
a storyteller.

I think this quote is taken from "The Travels of Ibn Battutah" Ibn Battutah, states (08:27):
"traveling, it
leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."

(08:48):
Yes, as IP scholars, we could be actual good storytellers.
We could bring this, because there is a difference between, even if you are doing research,
you realize that when you are doing empirical research, you know, you are writing a social
legal paper, which you have to surveys or whatever method you are using quantitative

(09:11):
or qualitative research, you realize that actually the physical investigation, feeling
and hearing and seeing the subject of your research is more powerful, gives you an insight,
gives you a more spark of bringing whatever is, you know, in your mind, whatever is trolling,

(09:40):
whatever is amusing in your mind, it is easy to bring them to paper and also you could
make your paper richer.
So, for legal writers in the field of IP, especially African writers, African IP scholars and teachers,
would encourage us, like when we are traveling, or even if we are not traveling, let's, I

(10:02):
know these days it could be expensive, but with what is going on now in Africa, with
the free trade agreements going on now in Africa, for instance, the African continental
free trade agreements and the African countries are now opening up, if you hold an African

(10:24):
passport, I'm sure, like I experienced, if you travel to a city like, a country like
Rwanda, you don't need a visa, so it's not expensive in terms of visa and hopefully,
we hope there could be more open skies where there will be direct flights from capitals

(10:46):
connecting African countries so that we can even do these trips cheaply and also by road.
So that's the angle I wanted to, you know, a lighter mood today, that traveling for an
IP scholar could be entertainment, it could also be educational, and it could also be

(11:11):
beneficial for your craft, you know, as scholars, if you're teaching, writing is part of your
eligibility for promotion from one rank to the other, and also as an academic, I mean,
we don't want to live in the arena of theories, we have to put something down, especially

(11:38):
now that we are trying to convince the other side of the world that African IP is real,
is eligible to be recognized, is eligible to be protected by either traditional IP regimes
or sygeneries, I mean, special laws to protect our geographical indications, traditional

(12:04):
cultural expressions, so I mean, this would encourage us more, and this would also be
a good tool for us to add to the literature out there and to give our publications, our
scholarship, the credibility and the authenticity it requires, and probably also it could be

(12:29):
one of the reasons why your paper will be published by a highly impactful publication
for those who want to publish in index publication, which is one of the things a lot of scholars

(12:52):
come for, so yes, that's where I'm coming from today, just to let us realize that traveling
here could be a little bit expensive, but it's also on the downstream, it could be also
beneficial for IP scholarship, thank you, and I'll be back sometime again in the next

(13:17):
episode, so stay well until you hear from me again, I am Samiay Repoji, bye.