The Federal Government will engage Nigerian indigenous firms and the organized Private Sector to help commercialise research results produced by researchers, inventors and innovators in the country, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has said.
Onu disclosed this when he received the board of IP First Group which paid him a courtesy call in his office on Thursday in Abuja.
The minister urged researchers, innovators and scientists to ensure that they patent and protect their research outputs because investors prefer research results that are patented.
According to him, intellectual property is the best criteria to measure the creativity and inventiveness of a nation, adding that Nigerians must be encouraged to protect their intellectual properties by getting them patented.
He said for Nigeria to create wealth, jobs and sufficiently defeat poverty, the nation needs to vigorously pursue a knowledge-based and innovation driven economy.
Dr. Onu further said that since the inception of the Buhari administration, Nigeria has made meaningful progress in achieving a knowledge-based and innovation driven economy by encouraging patent of research innovations.
Earlier, the Chairman of IP First Group, Dr. Umar Buba Bindir, said the major aim of the NGO was to ensure that Nigeria had a strong intellectual property policy, that will protect and patent research innovations indigenously developed in the country.
Dr. Bindir lamented that lack of Industrial Property Commission has significantly weakened Nigerian intellectual property system and constitutes a drain on Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings.
He said the group had resolved to ensure that all elements of Intellectual Property were well documented and coordinated nationwide.
Dr. Bindir, said that Intellectual Property protection was a catalyst for national development and industrialization.
He further said his NGO was poised to ensure that Nigerian firms and companies no longer need to import and consume Intellectual property from abroad, adding that the implementation of a National Intellectual policy will help achieve this.
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