From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has urged the university community in Nigeria to protect the intellectual assets of the institution.
The call was made by NOTAP Director General (DG) Dr Dan-Azumi Ibrahim while speaking at the commissioning of Intellectual Property Technology Transfer Office (IPTTO) on Tuesday in Gombe.
According to him, the lack of protection of intellectual assets developed by researchers has been an issue affecting the various invention and innovations in the country.
He said that his office realizes the need to sensitize the university community, particularly researchers, on the need to start protecting their intellectual assets. ‘The university community is where research and development take place and research and development is key to economic development,’ he stated.
‘If you laboured for years to come out with any invention or innovation if you don’t protect it, is like you are throwing it out to the public for anybody to take and use of your intellectual assets,’ he added.
Dr Ibrahim explained that the essence of establishing the IPTTO office which was sited at Gombe State University (GSU) was to sensitize and support researchers, innovators and inventors in patenting their intellectual innovations. He said that ‘protecting your intellectual asset is the initial stage of any commercialization effort.’
Speaking on behalf of the university community in Gombe State, the Vice Chancellor of GSU, Prof Aliyu Usman Elnafaty, said that academia has lost a lot to intellectual theft ‘because they have not been a deliberate attempt in trying to harness all these talents, bring them together, in terms of collating them and promote them in such a way that they can be put to the industry that we can all benefit from them.
‘We hope that the establishment of this office is going to make a lot of difference,’ Prof Elnafaty said.
Meanwhile, the Gombe State Government assured that apart from establishing the IPTTO in Gombe there is an ongoing plan to develop a databank for innovators and inventors in the state.
Addressing the media shortly after commissioning the IPTTO office at GSU, the state’s Commissioner of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Aishatu Maigari, said: ‘As a state, we are going to have a databank of our innovators and inventors, we are going to get more grant for them.
‘Since the governor has approved the establishment of the Gombe state standing committee on inventions and innovations, we find out that for some of them it is the lack of financial resources, some are lack of the technical know-how of commercializing intellectual property, technology transfer that is hindering them from commercialization,’ she said.