Mutumwa Mawere

When future generations look back on this day, Sunday, 10 January 2010, they may never know what is between my ears i.e. what I am thinking unless I do something about it.

All human beings have a mind and some choose to keep their thoughts to themselves while others choose to share the little knowledge they may have or acquire in life.

It is up to us to make a choice on what we want to be remembered for.

When we look back at the journey we have travelled as African people, it is easy to make assumptions about the actions and motives of those who came before us principally because some of the experiences were not recorded and codified for us to have a reliable reference guide.

We may never know the state of mind of native Africans at the time of the first interface with European civilization but what we do know is that it was possible for a minority to dominate the majority. Why was this possible?

As we search for answers, we also have to pause and reflect on the power of knowledge in human civilization.
After all knowledge is power and yet many of us think that money, land and minerals, for example, provide the ultimate power.

If knowledge is power, then we need to invest in building a bank of it so that those who wish to benefit from its application can do so without let or hindrance.

Today, the day before my birthday, is special to me and, therefore, I decided to share my insights into the history, relevance and implications of intellectual property to human development and God's purpose.

What is intellectual property (IP)? It is divided into two categories i.e. industrial and copyright and refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.

Industrial property includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial designs, and geographic indications of source whereas copyright includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs.

A legal monopoly over creations of the mind is only possible if there is rule of law.

Under intellectual property law, owners are granted exclusive rights to their creations.

Although many of the legal principles governing intellectual property have evolved over the years, it was only in the 19th century that the term began to be used and only in the 20th century that it became popularized in the USA.

The concept traces its origin from the Jewish law that includes several considerations whose effects are similar to those of modern intellectual property laws but it made its first appearance in Europe after the French civilization.

In our heritage, it is obvious that the term could only have been introduced into our worldview from Europeans.
References to the term began in 1818 in France, followed in 1845 in a Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in a patent case.

Can discoveries be regarded as property? The link between property and discoveries was first articulated in Section 1 of the French Law of 1791 which stated that: "All new discoveries are the property of the author; to assure the inventor the property and temporary enjoyment of his discovery, there shall be delivered to him a patent for five, ten or fifteen years."

In 1888, the Swiss Federal Office for Intellectual Property was established in Berne making it the first institution to be charged with the responsibility of administering this form of property right.

The United Intellectual Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property located in Berne was established in 1893 by the merger of the administrative secretariats established by the Paris Convention (1883) and Berne Convention of 1886.

In 1960, the organization was relocated to Geneva and was succeeded in 1967 with the establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by treaty as an agency of the UN.

We all know that God made minerals and hid them. Our job is to find them. The mind is also a mine that can be exploited for common good.

God has revealed his power through mankind and each generation has come up with solutions that enhance the quality of life but not its absolute extension.

The human mind is a complex asset that can be harnessed. The creations of the mind to the extent that they do not exist until brought into being cannot be taken for granted.

Can you imagine the world without the Internet, for example? But behind the invention of the Internet was a human mind. We are all better for it because of such inventions and yet if a civilization was created where such innovations and inventions are not rewarded, the incentive to raise the bar will diminish.

Even the founding fathers of the USA, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who drafted the Copyright Clause were quite skeptical of the monopolies of copyright and patents in as much as we all are of the potential toxic effects of monopolies.

Too much power vested in an individual can be counterproductive and yet God chooses the individuals to reveal his power through.

Societies that promote and protect this intangible asset have a better promise that those that allow for theft of ideas of the mind.

Gifted people can be energized to expose their talents if an institutional framework exists to protect and in so doing reward them for their value addition.

Should an idea, which according to Jefferson and Madison is a fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, be claimed in exclusive and stable property?

How should the enterprise of nation building harness the action of the thinking power called an idea that an individual may exclusively possess if he keeps it to himself?

Once the idea is divulged, it then forces itself into the possession of every one to the extent that the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

In socialist thinking, the idea must be freely spread from one to another for the improvement of mankind. Was this God's purpose in creating mankind?

Should inventions be a subject of property in as much as minerals and land are?

If God was benevolent in creating the world, should IP not be subject to the same laws of nature?

He, who receives an idea from another person, receives instruction without lessening the giver's idea. He who explores and finds minerals, for instance, does not disadvantage the people who do not know that the minerals exist.

God does not expect compensation from those that explore and exploits his creation and yet creations of the mind have to be compensated lest human civilization encourages people to only expose the ideas that they may have to restricted groups.

Africa has benefited and enriched its civilization from the brains of non-Africans. Our claim to fame cannot, therefore, be linked to what God created for us.
God's creations need to be exposed and exploited using the human mind as an instrument.

When we look at the condition of Africa today, we must not lose hope about the future. We all have a purpose in life.

Some of us sell our time in the labor market while others are gifted enough to convert their minds into creations that have an impact on human civilization.

The value and utility of such creations can outlive the inventor but societies that have managed to advance their causes have been able to create a legal framework that allows the beneficiaries of such inventions to pay for the value they receive from consuming the solutions, services and goods produced.

In the global market place of ideas, how does Africa rank? If a bank of inventions were to be created, how much of the bank's contents would Africa account for?

I am humbled by the impact of the individuals whose inventions have made my life easier and yet were magnanimous enough to expose their mind to the rest of the world without surrendering to man's weakest instinct i.e. to nationalize ideas and creations (even God's).

Ideas can leverage nations is as much as resources created by God directly can.

Minerals, for instance, will remain in situ unless they are found and exploited for the benefit of mankind.

Ideas that are not used will not be available for future generations in as much as minerals will be available if not exploited.

It is, therefore, important that we invest in exposing our minds so that future generations may know what lay in between our ears.