Lawyers have challenged President Museveni’s orders that institutions should stop frustrating scientists who are making efforts to come up with breakthrough inventions for Covid-19 pandemic fight.
Mr Museveni, in his televised address to the nation last Friday, while talking about the great efforts being put by scientists to develop therapeutics for Covid-19, said: “Last and more importantly, we must protect the intellectual property rights of the scientists involved. I have heard of arguments around ownership of the patents and trademarks, but this is a straightforward issue.”
“These belong to the scientists who discovered them. If the institutions that employ these scientists want to benefit from their innovations, they should levy a sort of tax, what the technology transfer experts refer to as sharing of royalties. Even then, much of the proceeds should go to the inventor, so that we encourage our scientists to discover more,” he added.
