The Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WIPO) aimed at strength­en­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ca­pac­i­ty for patent draft­ing and sup­port­ing lo­cal in­no­va­tors.

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein signed the agree­ment on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the 68th WIPO Gen­er­al As­sem­blies in Gene­va, Switzer­land.

The part­ner­ship seeks to ad­dress a gap in the coun­try’s in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty sys­tem, where lo­cal in­ven­tors cur­rent­ly have to re­ly on for­eign ex­per­tise to pre­pare patent ap­pli­ca­tions. The min­istry said this is due to lim­it­ed pri­vate sec­tor ca­pac­i­ty and le­gal re­stric­tions pre­vent­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Of­fice (TTIPO) from pro­vid­ing patent draft­ing ser­vices.