The other day in a meeting with Export Promotion Council (EPC) officials who came to “my place of work” (read my living room) to follow-up on my readiness to export after a training I attended with them, I raised the issue of patenting and intellectual property rights.
I avoid the “Maasai Markets” and informal open-air markets to avoid copying of my designs. Recently, I bumped into a creative friend of mine who told me that a prominent bag design company in Kenya had copied my clutch bag concept and were even using the same kind of leather I use (a buffalo hide-like textured cow hide). Just two minutes ago my aunt called me saying she just saw a design by the said design house in one of the local dailies that was so similar to the one I make that she had thought it was mine until she saw the name of the featured company.
I acknowledge that though similar in design, both my clutch bag and the said company's bag are different. I would love to get a closer look at theirs though.
In the conversation with the aforementioned creative friend, I told her that in our hand-made market it is difficult to own a design as patent and intellectual property laws (even the common sense ones) don’t protect the small producer. I also told the EPC officials that perhaps we should have a system in place that allows designers to acknowledge each others prowess and encourage paying of annual royalties … sort of like a product design Music Copy Rights Society of Kenya (MCSK). That way everyone gets paid.
Anyhow, I guess this is a challenge to me to up my visibility against the bigger players.
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