EIPO is responsible for maintaining Ethiopian patent rights and copyrighted materials, and combat pirated software.
Alebel Ashagrie & Associates, and Ethiopian Law Office provides comprehensive types of intellectual property, covering patent and trademark protection, design registration, copyright and the licensing of technology.
[8] Ethiopia's first intellectual property law was enacted in 2006, which included provisions for patents, trademarks, copyrights, and industrial designs.
The law aimed to protect the rights of creators and inventors in Ethiopia and promote innovation and creativity in the country.
Since then, Ethiopia has made efforts to strengthen its intellectual property rights framework to encourage innovation and economic growth.
[10][11] The trade mark registration should be filed for the Ethiopian Intellectual Property office by a local agent.
The inquiry of prior trademarks is necessary as it required by the Ethiopian authority, before filing trading application.
[14] However, there might be opposition party that contradicts the trademark publication, and in most cases, it takes approximately 6–8 months from first filling to registration.