– A Ghanaian Perspective
To get a patent, you must hand over your secret sauce…to the public… forever
Everyone knows that innovations in medicine, technology, engineering, and many other fields are the result of ingenuity, technical expertise, and countless hours of research and development. Not to mention the financial investments made to bring it all to fruition. Sharing this information is the equivalent of handing over your competitive advantage. It seems to undermine all the time, effort and money invested.
So why are so many people keen on registering a patent?
The simple answer: Monopoly!
When you apply for patent protection, you offer to explain to the whole world, step by step, with diagrams, exactly how to recreate your invention in exchange for the exclusive right to produce and manufacture that invention for at least 20 years. Within that protection period, even though everyone knows how to make your invention, and can possibly make it if they had the materials and technology, they cannot legally make it without your permission. And within those twenty years, you can improve on the work and register new patents on the improvements. Done right, this monopoly can be maintained for decades. Pharmaceutical companies are already doing it with drugs like insulin.
Patent protection also has social benefits. It promotes innovation, speeds up technological advancement, and arguably makes access to advanced technology cheaper by reducing R&D costs for developers building on patented inventions.
At its core, the patent regime balances society’s need for innovation with the inventor’s commercial interest. This article unpacks how that bargain works under Ghanaian law, what an inventor is actually required to give up, and why the holder’s exclusivity may not always be absolute.
The Scope of Protection
Patent protection grants the original inventor exclusive production rights to the invention. Where the invention is a build-up on an existing patented invention, the protection only gives the improving inventor the right to prevent others from manufacturing their improved version. The new inventor still needs a license from the original patent holder to use the original technology.
The Ghanaian Legal Framework
Ghana’s patent regime is governed primarily by the Patents Act, 2003 (Act 657) as amended by the Patents (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Act 1060). Ghana has also ratified the Harare Protocol, the Paris Convention, and the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT). So, patents can be registered in Ghana under those international protocols as well. In our next article, we will explore the protections granted under each international treaty.
What Kind of IP Can be Protected With Patents?
Inventions that are new, involve an inventive step, and are industrially applicable. An inventive step is one that will not be obvious to a person ordinarily skilled in the sector the invention pertains to.
Inventions that are excluded from patent protection
Protected inventions do not include discoveries, scientific theories, and mathematical methods, schemes, rules or methods for doing business, diagnostic methods, treatment methods for humans or animals, surgical methods, and therapy. Additionally, if the invention is necessary for the protection of human, animal, or plant health/life, it cannot be patented. Similarly, any invention that has the potential to harm the environment will not be protected.[1]
It is also important to understand that you cannot patent visible plants and animals, or plant varieties (there is a different form of protection for them). Neither can you patent their biological processes. But interestingly, you can obtain a patent for microorganisms, and their biological and non-biological processes.
In rare cases, patented protection can be overridden or circumvented by the government for reasons of national security, nutrition, health, or the development of other vital sectors.[2]
How do you register a Patent
Preliminary Search – Do your independent prior art search before you commit to the process. It’s legally optional but a business necessity.
File an application – we strongly recommend that you engage a lawyer or patent expert for this part because it is very technical. And the scope of protection you eventually enjoy depends entirely on how your claim is drafted[3]
International Prior Art Search – though protection under national law is national, the invention must be new/ novel/ inventive by international standards.
Examination – This is simply scrutinizing the application to be sure that it meets the formal and substantive requirements for a patent.
Publication and Grant of Patent – note that the period of protection is retrospective. It starts from the day you file the application.
What if my invention builds on someone else’s patent?
Many inventions are improvements on something that already exists. This is an important nuance for businesses to understand. A patent granted for an improvement only protects the new contribution. It does not give the improver any rights over the underlying invention it builds on. In practice, this means that a business can hold a valid patent for its improvement and still need the original patent holder’s permission to commercialize the combined product, particularly where the original patent is still in force. Patent protection, therefore, answers the question “Can I stop others from copying my contribution?”, and not necessarily, “Can I freely use everything I have built?”
Does a Ghanaian patent protect me abroad?
Not automatically. A patent granted in Ghana only protects the invention within Ghana because patent rights are territorial. For businesses looking to expand or export, it is important to understand that a competitor could legally replicate the invention in a country where no patent has been filed. Ghana’s membership of the Paris Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), as well as the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), gives businesses a practical route to extend protection abroad without having to file a separate, fresh application in every single country from scratch. The choice of where else to file is ultimately a commercial decision. Ideally, businesses should file for patent protection in all countries where they intend to manufacture, sell, or face competition.
Patents as a Business Decision
For a business, a patent is a strategic intangible asset. Patents can be licensed for royalties, used to attract investors who want assurance that a product cannot be freely copied, pledged as collateral, or sold outright. It can also be a deterrent: competitors are generally less willing to invest in copying a product once they know it is legally protected. Whether a patent is the right tool, however, depends on the nature of the innovation and the business’s priorities.
This is where the disclosure bargain discussed at the beginning of this article becomes a live business question, not just a legal one. Because a patent requires public disclosure and lasts only twenty years, it suits inventions that are easy to reverse-engineer once sold.
If the innovation can realistically be kept hidden even after it reaches the market, a trade secret may offer better protection. Unlike a patent, a trade secret requires no registration, no disclosure, and has no expiry. Coca-Cola’s formula, famously, has never been patented and has outlasted what any patent term could have offered. But that protection only holds for as long as the secret holds. There is no right to stop a competitor who arrives at the same innovation independently or through lawful reverse engineering. There is also no government registry to point to as proof of ownership if the secret leaks. The choice, in the end, is a trade-off between two different kinds of risk: the certainty and time-limited exclusivity of a patent, versus the indefinite but fragile protection of a secret well kept.
Why Patents Are Important Even If You Have No Plans To Register One.
The data contained in patent claims can be very useful to researchers, entrepreneurs, and inventors. It helps them to assess the latest developments in a specific technological field, learn from the new technology, and build on it. Since patent registration has geographical limitations and does not have automatic worldwide protection, the patent claims can also reveal which markets the technology can be duplicated in legally, without the need for a license from the patent holder.[4] (Mind you, you will, however, not be able to register that technology as a patent in those other countries because it will fail the novelty test)
Conclusion
Patent protection indeed calls for the sacrifice of a monopoly of knowledge in exchange for a monopoly of sales and manufacturing for a limited. Therefore, it should not be treated as a default answer. Before filing, it is worth asking honestly whether the innovation can be reverse engineered once it reaches the market, and whether disclosing it publicly serves the business better than guarding it as a trade secret. Getting that call right, more than any procedural step, is what determines whether a patent ends up protecting a business or simply handing its blueprint to competitors.
[1] Section 2 (a) to (d) of Act 657.
[2] Section 13 of Act 657.
[3] Section 5(5), 9 and 10 of Act 657.
[4] WIPO-Patents; Accessed 16th June 2026 https://www.wipo.int/en/web/patents
Contributors: Audrey Naa Dei Kotey, Clara Mettle-Nunoo, Gideon Gameli Apomah, & Queensca Pamela Asare
You can download the article to read offline here