Caribbean Law

The Guyana Government and the protection of Copyright laws. By Abiola Inniss         Recent weeks have found the Intellectual Property scene in Guyana astir with activity .According to reports the Guyana Government declared that as a matter of policy it would be spending millions of dollars to procure bootlegged British textbooks from an handful of local copy artists with large scale printing facilities. This bold declaration was made, it claimed, as a means of getting the most for the dollar and supposedly for the benefit of the nation. The Government made this declaration in the face of the existing Copyright Act of 1956 (Cap, 74) which states as follows: " In accordance with the preceding subsection, but subject to the following provisions of this Act, the copyright in a work is infringed by any person who, not being the owner of the copyright, and without the licence of the owner thereof, does or authorises another person to do, any of the said acts in relation to t

The WIPO Journal 2012. International Intellectual Property Law and Policy: Can the Caribbean Region Capitalize on Current Global Developmental Trends in Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation Policies? Inniss.A (2012) 3 W.I.P.O.J., Issue 2 © 2012 Thomson Reuters (Professional) UK Limited

BY Abiola Inniss LLB,LLM,ACIArb In a recent article published in the WIPO ( World Intellectual Property Organization) Journal of May 2012 , titled "International Intellectual Property law and policy: Can the Caribbean region capitalize on current global developmental trends in IP rights and innovation policies?" this writer examined the WIPO report on the creation and exchange of intellectual property rights (IPRs) among developed and developing countries published in the last quarter of 2011and asked the question " In view of the current trends in innovation and IP development policies worldwide, how might the Caribbean region (Caricom) capitalize on current developments for economic growth?’ This question is of dire importance to the policy makers and citizens of the region who ought to become alarmed at the state of regional lassitude in this critical world economic sphere, especially since new technologies, the exchange of information, and knowledge managem

Thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you on a subject that has been of great interest to me and of great importance to the peoples of the Caribbean region. I know that when many people think of the Caribbean, the immediate images of islands surrounded by sand and sea bathed in sunshine fun and frolic come to mind; that is what we see on TV By extension the exotic jungles of the South America in particular my native land Guyana , the only English speaking country on the continent of South America, may also capture the imagination as a paradise of the kind propagated in the movie Tarzan, very little is known about the cultural intricacies of the region in Western civilization outside of international organizations such as The United Nations and so the substantive issues of community life and conflict ,and of necessity conflict resolution make for a fascinating and important study. For the purpose of my discourse, I am confined to the fifteen countries which are members of Cari