Kinshasa, April 2nd, 2026, (CPA),- The Infringements of patent rights are punishable under the Digital Code of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a lawyer has affirmed on Thursday during an interview with CPA in Kinshasa. “It constitutes an infringement of intellectual property rights the act, knowingly and without authorisation, of selling or making available to the public, by means of reproduction or representation, an item or product protected by a patent via a computer system.
Those who, with full knowledge of the facts, sell, offer for sale, rent out, possess or import into the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for commercial purposes, objects, works, software or computer hardware protected by a patent shall be liable to the same penalties as provided for in Article 14 of the Criminal Code,” has declared Lawyer Medard Yongola, a barrister at the Sankuru Bar. And to continue: “Without prejudice to the penalties provided for in Article 14 of the Criminal Code, infringements of patent property rights are punishable by five to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of two hundred to two hundred and fifty million Congolese francs.” According to this lawyer, in light of the aforementioned provision, the Digital Code penalises any counterfeiting of products or goods protected by a valid patent, adding that the counterfeiter will be prosecuted under the provisions of the law on industrial property set out in the Criminal Code and the Digital Code. This may result in the payment of damages in the event of harm occurring. He has indicated that for this offence to be established, the legal, material and intentional elements must be present.
“For this offence to be established there must be a legal element, which is the violation of the Digital Code, and the existence of a valid industrial property title (patent, improvement or import licence) registered at the ministry responsible for industry,” has said Mr Yongola. Apart from the legal element, he has said, there must be a material element, which consists of positive acts of reproduction, imitation, importation or exportation of a patented invention, or online sales without the holder’s consent, adding that the moral or intentional element is that the infringer must have acted knowingly and infringed a patented invention, such as a rolling robot manufactured in DRC. It should be noted that a patent is an industrial property title issued by an authority conferring an exclusive right to exploit an invention.