Trademark exhaustion and parallel imports from the perspective of Rwandan intellectual property law

Abstract

The purpose of this research on “Trademark Exhaustion and Parallel imports from the perspective of Rwandan Intellectual Property Law “ is to investigate the exhaustion regime adopted by Rwandan law on intellectual property and its impact on the ease of doing business. The research focuses particularly on qualifying the types of exhaustion of rights provided for by the law on the protection of intellectual property in Rwanda; analyzing the problem of parallel imports and trademark infringement and then analyzing how the applicability of exhaustion of rights vis ă vis parallel imports affects the ease of doing business. There are several reasons as to why this kind of phenomenon of the closely correlated approaches occurs whereby a third party happens to import within the geographical area covered by exclusive rights, without the consent of the owner of the trademark rights but usually the most common reason is the price. However, the scope of rights’ exhaustion depends on the type of exhaustion. The outcomes of the analysis have shown that the objectives were attained and that the applicability of the exhaustion of rights principle has got changes. Rwanda - for the ease of doing business- has adopted the international exhaustion principle in its “Revised Policy on Intellectual Property”of 2018 and hence accepts these internationally exhausted products to the territory. Nonetheless, on the basis of some decided cases on counterfeit, there resides the challenge of non-compliance with the implementation of the revised policy on intellectual property especially in courts. Thus, the current rank of Rwanda among economies in the ease of doing business is to be appreciated as the Country manages to promote the free movement of goods through the principle of international exhaustion of rights. And such regime is consistent not only with Rwandan policy on intellectual property but also with WTO principles. The research suggests the revision of the Law on the protection of intellectual Property of 2009 to ensure that parallel imports are provided for by the Rwandan laws and that the exhaustion doctrine applies as well.