Title: Exploring Ethiopia's intellectual property rights system: prospects and grey areas for agro-food chain sector innovations

Authors: Tadesse Kenea Amentae; Wei Song

Addresses: Department of Management, Ambo University, P.O. Box 19, Ambo, Oromia, Ethiopia ' Institute of Intellectual Property, University of Science and Technology of China, No. 96 Jinzhai Rd., Hefei, 230026, Anhui Province, China

Abstract: Ethiopia, one of the most agriculturally viable and biodiverse countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, continues to face food insecurity. Strengthening the intellectual property rights (IPR) regime could play a critical role in fostering innovation and supporting the country's transition toward sustainable food security. This explorative study assessed Ethiopia's IPR frameworks through article-by-article analysis, synthesising local and international legal documents to provide a comprehensive narrative analysis of their potential to drive agricultural innovation. The findings indicate that Ethiopia's IPR system, covering copyright, patents, plant breeders' rights, and trademarks, contains provisions that may encourage agricultural innovation. While Ethiopia's alignment with international IPR treaties reflects its readiness to embrace innovation, gaps remain, including conflicts with certain accords, a lack of protection of geographical indications and traditional knowledge, weak institutional capacity, and limited enforcement. The study underscores the need to implement a geographical indications system and a sui generis framework for traditional knowledge. It also calls for revisions to the Plant Breeders' Rights Proclamation to ensure administrative coordination, alongside stronger institutions and empirical research on monopolistic practices, biodiversity loss, and biopiracy to enhance IPR's role in agricultural innovation and food security.

Keywords: agricultural innovations; Ethiopia; intellectual property rights; IPR; trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights; TRIPS; World Intellectual Property Organization; WIPO; World Trade Organization; WTO.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPM.2026.152454

International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, 2026 Vol.16 No.2, pp.197 - 227

Received: 05 Dec 2024
Accepted: 10 Oct 2025
Published online: 20 Mar 2026 *

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