Bahamas Launches Public Consultation on IP Legislation

On January 8th, the Bahamas Trade Commission announced that the Government of the Bahamas is moving ahead with a wide-raging reform the country's intellectual property regime.  The Government will be tabling seven bills, each covering a specific sector of intellectual property law, namely copyright, patents, protection of new plant varieties, trademarks, integrated circuits, geographical indications and false trade descriptions. In an interview with the Bahamian press last November, the Minister of Financial Services, Ryan Pinder, noted that this legislative reform is a key requirement for the country's accession to full World Trade Organization membership and complying with the EU- Caribbean Economic Partnership Agreement.  

The legislative process appears to be moving rather quickly.  In the January 8th announcement, the Government noted that that four meetings will be held on January 11, 14, 17 and 18 to receive public comments on these bills.  In the November interview, Minister Pinder also noted that:

The legislation is being drafted. We have had closed consultation sessions to get some comments and feedback from stakeholders. That feedback has been incorporated into the legislation. We’re doing a final review of the legislation. We hope in the New Year to bring the legislation to parliament. Our goal would be to have it tabled and debated by the first quarter.

While the Government's intention to modernize the Bahamian IPR regime is laudable, its timetable for public consultations is surprising.   Many of the provisions are highly technical and involve important public policy issues, including the use of copyrighted material in the classroom, the sale of pharmaceutical products and the dissemination of Bahamian music.  Given the breadth of the proposed legislation (i.e. approximately 200 pages of legislative text), few stakeholders can be reasonably expected to have reviewed and understood the legislation before the public meetings.  Even large corporate stakeholders are unlikely to have sufficient time to understand the ramifications of these bills in the allotted timeframe.  One can only hope that these bills will be subject to greater scrutiny once they are tabled in the Bahamian Parliament.