Abstract:

The contemporary legal frameworks are designed in line with mostly recognizing and protecting the right of individual person emanating from scientific innovations than beliefs, knowledge, practices, innovations, arts, spirituality and other cultural expressions. Whereas, IK is held in most cases by groups and there is collective right. This paper analyzed the legal protection accorded to IK at international, regional and national level with particular emphasis to the legal gaps within Ethiopia’s Intellectual Property (IP) legal frameworks.This paper finds that there are legal gaps/lacuna within the existing IP laws and other related laws which aim at protecting knowledge, innovations and practices in general and with regard to the protection of IK in particular. The paper at hand is delimited to analyze only Ethiopia’s IP laws which have identified roles in protecting IK such as copy right law, patent law, trade mark law, genetic right law, and incidentally geographical indication system. Ethiopia’s IP laws are inclined mostly towards protecting individual knowledge, creativity and rights than collective rights.It is found that due to lack of adequate IP legal frameworks protecting IK, and community knowledge, developing countries in general and Ethiopia’s in particular are the victim of the exploitation, usurpation, and piracy of IP rights and inability to earn the necessary economic and cultural benefits accruing from IK.