Ministry facilitates intellectual property protection for investors

THE Federal Ministry of Science and Technology has taken the lead in ensuring that intellectual properties of investors in the country were protected.

It said such action would ensure that the investors made more money and also boost the country’s economy.

Speaking when he presented patent certificates to some inventors in Abuja, Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnya Onu, noted that dependence on other countries would reduce if enough energy was invested in science and technology.

“We want to make sure that our inventors protect their intellectual property so that they can make money out of it and this will make more people to go for invention,” he said.

The minister stated further: ”We want to see Nigerian inventor to be wealthy. If Bill Gate can be the richest man in the world through invention, then we need people like Bill Gate in Nigeria.

“The missing link in our developmental aspiration is science and technology. If we put enough energy in science and technology, we would not depend on other countries; if we meet our needs locally, we would strengthen our economy and our nation.

“We have so many of our research findings that should go into the market as quickly as possible. For example, the High Density Nutrient Biscuit (HDNB) produced by NASCO has been taken to East Africa and we are also in the process of getting a patent for that.

“We have nutrition that we are using for those who are malnourished and for things like these, we don’t need to get patent before we commercialize them; we also have nutrition for those who have sickle cell anaemia,” he said.

Earlier, the Director General of National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr Danlami Ibrahim, warned that investors would shun investments if innovation was not protected.