Industrial Property Act, 2013. Country/Territory Uganda Document type Legislation Date 2014 Source FAO, FAOLEX Long titleAn Act to provide for the promotion of inventive and innovative activities, to facilitate the acquisition of technology through the grant and regulation of patents, utility models, industrial designs and technovations and to provide for the designation of a registrar, to provide for the functions of the registrar, and the establishment of a register of industrial property rights and for related matters. Subject General Keyword Intellectual property rights/patents Offences/penalties Biotechnology Genetically modified organism (GMO) Traditional knowledge/indigenous knowledge Geographical area Africa, Eastern Africa, Landlocked Developing Nations, Least Developed Countries Abstract This Act makes provision with respect to the grant and regulation of patents, utility models, industrial designs and "technovations". It sets out the the requirements and the procedure for the application and grant of a patent, a certificate of a utility model, registration of an industrial design or a certificate of technovation. Plants and animals other than micro-organisms, and essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non-biological and micro-biological processes shall not be regarded as inventions and shall be excluded from patent protection. "Utility model" means any form, configuration or disposition of element of some appliance, utensil, tool, electrical and electronic circuitry, instrument, handicraft mechanism or other object or any part of it allowing a better or different functioning, use, or manufacture of the subject matter or that gives some utility, advantage, environmental benefit, saving or technical effect not previously available in Uganda; and includes microorganisms or other self-replicable material, products of genetic resources and herbal as well as nutritional formulations which give new effects. A patent may be granted for biotechnoly. The description of the invention shall contain a clear identification of the origin of genetic or biological resources collected in the territory of Uganda and that were directly or indirectly used in the making of the claimed invention as well as of any element of traditional knowledge associated or not with those resources and that was directly or indirectly used in the making of the claimed invention without the prior informed consent of its individual or collective creators. The Minister is entitled to claim proprietary interests in any patent application filed or granted that does not comply with provisions on disclosure of the claimed invention as regards genetic resources. The Minister shall notify the registrar to assign to the ministry, or to any agency or entity designated by the competent authority, a share in the application or in the resulting patent, which shall not be less than twenty percent of the ownership of the claimed invention. Where the non compliance with violation of disclosure provisions as regards genetic resources generates strong public concern and is likely to give rise to breach of morality and public order, the competent authority, if vested with the total ownership of the application or the resulting patent, may withdraw the application or abandon the patent, so that the claimed invention falls into the public domain. Inventions contrary to public order, morality, public health and safety, public policy, principles of humanity and environmental conservation are not patentable. Full text English Website www.parliament.go.ug