In this week’s Diamond Brief Series, Priscilla Nayiga and Vera Kabasiita Nakatumba discuss the the dilemma of financial innovators in East Africa and the role of law in protecting small fintech innovators in Uganda, and the effectiveness of Uganda’s intellectual property law. They argue that while Uganda’s fintech ecosystem may have outpaced the development of dedicated legal frameworks, existing intellectual property doctrines apply with equal force to fintech products and their underlying expressions. The case of Muoki v. Safaricom should matter to Ugandan founders for a reason beyond its obvious encouragement. It demonstrates that copyright registration, meticulous documentation, and early legal counsel are not luxury expenses for well-funded startups. They are survival tools for any founder whose innovation might one day attract the attention of a larger player.
