NAIROBI: Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced that World Intellectual Property (IP) Day scheduled to be on 26th April will be a reminder to protect patents, copyrights and trademarks as well as stopping counterfeiters. “The celebration of World IP Day is about ensuring greater awareness and defence of intellectual property in all its forms, whether it's to protect a musician's lyrics, a scientist's patents or, in the case of HP, proprietary printer cartridge technology,” said Tina Rose, Anti Counterfeit Program Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Printing and Personal Systems Group (PPS). She added that increase in awareness can make Kenya a better place to do business and also protect the consumers from supplies that are not legitimate. “This can make Kenya an even better place to do business while also protecting society from the criminal elements that appropriate the IP of others to defraud innocent consumers.” This comes at a time when Kenya has been noted to be a high user of fake printing supplies such as laser and inkjet print cartridges, boxes and security labels. HP has vowed to continue performing audits of channel partner distributors in the region and to educate its customers and partners to be conscious against purchasing and using of fake printing supplies.
