A practical guide for startups and SMEs in Nigeria and West Africa
Introduction
For most startups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), intellectual property (IP) is treated as a compliance box: register the trademark, file the paperwork, move on. That mindset leaves money on the table. Handled deliberately, an IP portfolio is a commercial engine. It can anchor a fundraise, unlock licensing revenue, deter copycats, and carry a brand across borders.
The timing for a strategic rethink could not be better. In November 2025, the Federal Executive Council approved Nigeria’s first National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy (NIPPS), formally launched the following month, with implementation committees inaugurated in January 2026.1 NIPPS explicitly aims to help innovators develop and deploy IP as a financial asset, not merely a legal formality. This article sets out how founders and business owners can move from registration to strategy: identifying the assets that matter, protecting them cost-effectively, enforcing them intelligently, and putting them to work commercially.
Why IP Is a Business Asset, Not a Legal Formality
Each category of IP does a distinct commercial job. Trademarks build recognition and customer trust. Patents fence off technical innovation. Copyright protects software, content, and creative output. Trade secrets guard the processes and data that competitors would love to see. Together, they create defensible market positions, and they open income streams that physical assets cannot: licensing, franchising, merchandising, and outright assignment for a lump sum or structured payments.
The macro picture reinforces the point. IP-intensive activity already contributes an estimated 2.3 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, and government projections target substantial growth by 2030.2 Investors have noticed. A business that can show clean ownership of its core IP, sensible registrations, and a credible enforcement posture is simply easier to value, and easier to fund, than one that cannot.
Align the IP Strategy with the Business Plan
There is no universal portfolio. The right mix follows the business model. An artificial intelligence startup will lean on copyright over its source code and trade secret protection over its models and training pipelines, with patents reserved for genuinely novel technical solutions. A fashion or consumer brand will invest first in trademarks and industrial designs. A media or entertainment venture lives and dies by copyright and well-drafted licensing agreements.
This calibration matters more in 2026 than it did five years ago. Global practice has shifted toward a layered approach for software businesses: copyright and trade secrets protect application-layer logic and user experience, while patents are reserved for foundational technology, a direction NIPPS itself encourages for Nigerian tech companies.3 Founders should revisit the portfolio at every strategic inflection point: a new product line, a new market, a fundraise, or a pivot. An IP strategy fixed at incorporation and never reviewed is a strategy in name only.
Prioritise: Not All IP Deserves Equal Spend
Startups run on constrained budgets, so ranking assets is essential. A structured IP audit should sort everything the business owns into three buckets: core IP, tied directly to the flagship product or service; supporting IP, which builds visibility and credibility around the brand; and monetisable IP, capable of generating revenue through licensing, franchising, or distribution arrangements. Core IP gets protected first and most robustly. Supporting and monetisable assets follow as resources allow.
Nigerian law actively rewards this discipline. The Nigeria Startup Act 2022 directs the Secretariat to assist labelled startups with IP identification, registration, and commercialisation, alongside tax reliefs and access to funding.4 Founders who arrive at the Startup Portal with an audited, prioritised portfolio extract far more value from these incentives than those who treat registration as an afterthought.
IP as Competitive Advantage: Lessons from the Market and the Courts
West Africa’s leading companies illustrate the offensive use of IP. Dangote Group’s multi-jurisdiction trademark filings across cement, salt, and consumer goods protect one of the continent’s most valuable brand names from free-riders. Flutterwave has paired trademark protection with careful control of its payment technology, allowing it to license solutions to partners across multiple African markets without surrendering its edge. These are portfolio decisions, made early and maintained deliberately.
Recent Nigerian case law shows the defensive side, and the cost of getting it wrong. In March 2025, the Federal High Court in Lagos ordered MTN Nigeria to pay ₦840 million in general damages, with interest and a perpetual injunction, for infringing Citilink Accesscorp Limited’s registered “WEBPLUS” trademark through its “MTN WEBPLUS” and “WEB+” services.5 The lesson for smaller businesses cuts both ways. A modest company with a properly registered mark successfully held one of Africa’s largest telecoms operators to account; and even the largest brand cannot skip clearance searches before launching a product name.
The Supreme Court has also sharpened the doctrine. In Dike Geo Motors Ltd v Allied Signal Inc, the apex court confirmed that registration is not a licence to deceive: a proprietor whose registered mark misleads the public into believing its goods are those of another trader cannot rely on that registration for protection.6 Substance, in other words, beats paperwork. A portfolio built on genuinely distinctive, honestly used marks is a stronger asset than a long list of opportunistic registrations.
Protecting IP on a Startup Budget
Cost discipline and serious protection are not opposites. Practical techniques include registering first in the markets where the business actually trades or plans to expand, rather than chasing global coverage; using Paris Convention priority to stagger foreign filings within the twelve-month window; and relying on well-drafted confidentiality and assignment agreements to protect trade secrets, which cost far less than patents and never expire while secrecy holds. The African Continental Free Trade Area’s Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights, adopted in February 2024, is also expected to simplify cross-border protection as implementation progresses, which makes a phased pan-African filing strategy increasingly realistic.7
Some of the world’s most sophisticated technology companies deliberately mix proprietary control with selective openness. Dropbox open-sourced its Lepton image-compression project to attract community development and adoption while keeping commercially sensitive elements proprietary.8 In Abu Dhabi, the Advanced Technology Research Council released its Falcon large language models free of charge, trading exclusivity for global credibility and an ecosystem of developers building on its technology.9 The principle travels well to Nigerian startups: guard the assets that create pricing power, and consider opening the ones whose value grows with adoption.
Enforcement: Rights Are Only as Strong as Their Defence
Registration without vigilance invites erosion. Businesses should run periodic watch services through IP counsel, monitor the Trade Marks Journal for conflicting applications, and use digital tracking tools to catch online infringement early. Just as important is internal hygiene: written IP assignment clauses in every employment and contractor agreement, so ownership disputes never arise at the worst possible moment, typically during due diligence.
When infringement occurs, the toolkit is broader than litigation. Cease-and-desist correspondence, opposition proceedings at the Registry, and alternative dispute resolution often deliver faster, cheaper outcomes. Where court action is unavoidable, the Copyright Act 2022 gives rights owners modernised remedies, including damages, injunctions, and account of profits, alongside new provisions addressing online infringement.10 The judiciary is investing in this space too: in June 2026, WIPO and the National Judicial Institute launched an Intellectual Property Benchbook for Nigerian judges, the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa, signalling growing judicial capacity for complex IP disputes, including those involving digital technologies and artificial intelligence.11
IP as a Fundraising and Balance-Sheet Tool
Investors increasingly interrogate IP during due diligence: Who owns the code? Are the marks registered in the right classes and territories? Are founder and employee assignments in place? A clean answer to those questions strengthens valuation; a messy one can kill a deal. Founders should present registered rights, pending applications, and trade secret protocols as part of the investment narrative, showing how the portfolio blocks competitors and supports expansion.
Two 2025-2026 developments push this further. First, NIPPS commits Nigeria to frameworks that let IP function as a viable financial asset, opening the door to more structured IP-backed lending and securitisation. Second, the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, effective from 1 January 2026, reshapes how income from royalties, licensing, and other IP transactions is taxed, which makes tax-aware structuring of licences and assignments an essential part of portfolio planning rather than an afterthought.12
Conclusion
An IP portfolio strategy is not a legal luxury; it is core business infrastructure. The businesses that win are those that audit and rank their intangible assets, match protection to the business model, spend where it counts, enforce with judgment, and present their portfolio confidently to investors and partners. Nigeria’s policy environment, from the Startup Act to NIPPS and the new tax architecture, now actively favours businesses that take IP seriously. The opportunity belongs to founders who treat their ideas with the same rigour as their revenue.
Written by Adeola Osifeko LLB, BL, LLM, ACIS ABR IP and Commercial Law Partner at AEO Law Practice, Lagos, Nigeria |
Blog: http://www.aeolawpractice.blog | LinkedIn · Instagram: @AEO Law Practice · X: @aeo_lawpractice
Endnotes
1. Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy (approved by the Federal Executive Council, November 2025; launched December 2025).
2. See the Federal Government’s creative and IP economy projections cited in commentary on the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 and the IP sector’s contribution to GDP.
3. National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy 2025, strategic priorities on technology, the creative economy and commercialisation.
4. Nigeria Startup Act 2022, s 31.
5. Citilink Accesscorp Ltd v MTN Nigeria Communications Ltd (Federal High Court, Lagos Division, judgment delivered March 2025) (unreported).
6. Dike Geo Motors Ltd v Allied Signal Inc (2024) 10 NWLR (Pt 1946) 201 (SC).
7. Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area, Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights (adopted February 2024).
8. Dropbox, ‘Balancing Open Source and Proprietary IP’ (Dropbox Tech Blog, December 2017) <https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/balancing-open-source-and-proprietary-ip-they-can-co-exist> accessed 14 July 2026.
9. Harry Booth, ‘TIME100 AI 2024: Faisal Al Bannai’ (TIME, September 2024) <https://time.com/7012755/faisal-al-bannai/> accessed 14 July 2026.
10. Copyright Act 2022, Part VII (remedies and enforcement).
11. WIPO, ‘WIPO Launches Intellectual Property Benchbook for Nigerian Judiciary’ (2 June 2026).
12. Nigeria Tax Act 2025 (assented 26 June 2025; in force 1 January 2026), provisions on royalties and taxation of intangible assets.
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