Trademark Infringement in Nigeria and Routine Activity Theory: What is Left to Discuss?
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Date
2023
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Abstract
In pre-industrial societies, land functioned as the source of
virtually all wealth. However, the advent of the industrial
revolution changed all that. It required that certain
individuals and institutions be willing to take substantial
risks in order to finance new inventions, machinery, and
business enterprises. Eventually, bankers, intellectual
property (IP) creators and owners, industrialists, and other
holders of large sums of money replaced landowners as the
most powerful economic force. By reason of all these,
existing laws were recalibrated and new laws were made
to ensure that people who invested their funds in the hope
of realising greater profits and thereby becoming business
owners of property and business firms were neither
disappointed nor defrauded. One of such laws is the
Nigerian Trademark law, which primary purpose is to
protect business reputation, goodwill, and deception.
However, despite the presence of this law, there are business and intellectual thieves of trademarks
everywhere; crime as an enterprise has robbed the owners
of trademark of their legitimate gains, all because, in part,
these infringers have been able to besiege, assault and to
seize the price within the walls of this intellectual turf. This
breach is possible because of the absence of capable
guardians (mechanisms of enforcement) which have really
helped those motivated offenders (infringers) to hit the
fortress of trademark protection in Nigeria. Consequently,
the need for a more-involving trademark law will definitely
save the day in the modern world.