The city of Luanda in Angola hosted the regional seminar on the exchange of best practices in combating counterfeiting for Portuguese-speaking African countries from May 27 to 29, 2025. In this context, Guinea-Bissau is a Portuguese-speaking member state of the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI).
Expert Sonia Audrey TEKAM, Legal Counsel at the Directorate of Trademarks and other distinctive signs of OAPI, took part and spoke on the various means of combating counterfeiting used by the Organization in the face of global economic challenges and the interest of joining current initiatives for greater security in distribution channels.
Cooperating to coordinate an effective and inclusive control strategy
Organised by the Intellectual Property Rights in Africa (AfriPI) project in partnership with the Portuguese Industrial Property Office (INPI) and the Angolan Industrial Property Office (IAPI), the workshop constituted an important step in pooling actions between European and African countries, to facilitate the coordination of an effective strategy to be deployed.
The sharing of experiences and expertise among the various stakeholders made it possible to establish an overview of anti-counterfeiting practices applied worldwide and to provide various adapted tools that would help countries better protect intellectual property rights, taking into account their national contexts
Through this initiative, OAPI is investing in upgrading its anti-counterfeiting efforts in its member states to foster a profitable business climate that reassures economic operators and consumers.
