There is a difference between holding a certificate and holding a right that survives scrutiny. Provenance IP secures that difference, registering the right, keeping it as a living asset, and standing behind it when it is questioned. For the brand owners and innovators building something worth protecting, across Kenya and beyond.
Intellectual property work runs from securing a right, through managing it as a commercial asset, to defending it when someone crosses the line. The services below span that whole arc, across trademarks, patents, designs, and copyright.
Securing the marks, patents, designs, and copyright a business is built on. Clearance searches first to check the ground is clear, then filing and prosecution through to registration, at home and by the Madrid Protocol where the brand travels.
Secure my rights →Rights are commercial assets, not paperwork. A structured audit of what you own, renewal and deadline management so nothing lapses, due diligence for deals and investors, and IP terms drafted into your contracts, all shaped around where the business is heading.
Manage my portfolio →Acting when counterfeit or infringing goods reach the market, and before they do. Evidence that survives objection, recordation and interception at the border, takedowns of online listings, and complaints that move the authorities to seize and prosecute.
Stop the fakes →Protecting rights as goods and brands cross borders. Madrid Protocol filings from a Kenyan base, protection for imported and exported goods, IP terms in your manufacturer and supplier agreements, and managing counterfeit risk along international supply chains.
Protect across borders →Most disputes are better settled than fought. Negotiation, mediation, and arbitration first, opposition and revocation before the registry, and the courtroom when it is the only thing that works, acting for rights holders and for those wrongly accused.
Resolve a dispute →Turning rights into revenue. Licensing and franchising, assignment and technology transfer, and the terms that let you earn from your IP without signing away its value.
Monetise my IP →A right looks settled on the certificate. It becomes real only when someone challenges it, and most rights are, sooner or later. The question that decides the outcome is plain: can you prove what you claim to own?
Most IP advice is written from the textbook out, and reads well until it meets resistance. This practice works the other way, from the registry, the customs hall, and the disputes themselves back to the page. You learn early which evidence holds and which only looks like it will.
The result is plainer counsel: a clear recommendation, an honest view of cost and odds, and one steady hand on a right across its whole life, from filing to the day it must be defended.
We start with the rights you hold and the risks you face, on paper and in the market.
You receive a written position on options, cost, and likely outcome before any action.
Filings, enforcement, and engagement with authorities, handled to a standard that holds in court.
Rights are not protected once and then forgotten. We keep watch and adjust as the market moves.
Most rights fail not because they were wrong, but because registration, management, and defence were handled by different people who never spoke to each other. Here they are one relationship, and that is what keeps a portfolio worth defending.
Clearance, filing, and prosecution across trademarks, patents, designs, and copyright, at home and through the Madrid Protocol.
Registration & ProtectionAudits, renewals, valuations, and licensing, so a right stays alive, earns its keep, and is ready the day you need to rely on it.
Portfolio Strategy & ManagementMost disputes are better settled than fought. Negotiation and arbitration first, the courtroom when it is the only thing that works, for rights holders and for those wrongly accused.
Dispute Resolution & EnforcementEvery counterfeit sold is a sale taken from the genuine brand, and worse, a customer who blames the genuine brand when the fake falls apart. The damage stays quiet until it surfaces in the revenue and the reputation at the same time.
Panic does not fix it, and neither does paperwork. What fixes it is a right secured before it is needed, evidence kept so it survives an objection, and a response timed to land while the goods are still there to seize. That is the work.
A registered mark is a promise of genuine origin. My work is to keep that promise worth something, and to make it hold when someone tests it. Fredrick Wainaina
A Kenyan practice by admission and by instinct, acting for clients whose brands and disputes cross borders, from a base that understands both the local registry and the wider market.
Deep familiarity with the Kenyan IP system, from the registry counter to the courtroom, is what makes the advice practical rather than theoretical.
Brands rarely stay in one country, and neither do the counterfeits. Protection is built to follow the goods, not stop at the port.
Where a matter touches another jurisdiction, trusted counsel is engaged, so you keep one point of contact and one coherent strategy.
Articles and video briefings on brand protection, evidence, and the supply chain. Written for brand owners first, lawyers second.
Kenyan courts admit electronic records under sections 78A and 106B of the Evidence Act Cap 80, but the two provisions pull in different directions. What a brand owner should capture, and how, before the listing disappears.
Read the note →China is a first-to-file jurisdiction. For African brands sourcing goods there, the most expensive mistake is leaving the mark unregistered at the factory gate.
Read the note →What a rights holder should do, and refuse to do, between discovering counterfeit stock and instructing counsel. A field sequence drawn from enforcement practice.
Read the note →Kenya's anti-counterfeit framework requires recordation of IP rights for imported goods. Treated properly, the requirement is not a compliance burden but a standing instruction to intercept fakes before they reach a shelf.
Read the note →An occasional email when a new practice note is published. No marketing, and no schedule kept for its own sake. A note goes out when there is something worth saying.
A clear written position with a recommendation, not a hedged opinion that hands the decision back to you.
You hear the likely outcome and what it will cost to get there before you commit a shilling.
Every step assumes the matter may end up contested, so nothing done today quietly weakens your position tomorrow.
Brand disputes are commercially sensitive. What you tell me stays between us.
No, but it is urgent. Unregistered brands have limited protection, and every day of trading builds value that is exposed. A clearance search and filing can usually begin within days, and interim steps can protect you while registration is pending.
Preserve evidence before anything else. Buy a sample, keep the receipt, photograph the stock and the premises if you safely can, and note the date. Do not confront the seller. The practice note on the first 48 hours sets out the full sequence, and then get in touch, because the steps after that determine whether enforcement succeeds.
Sometimes, and often not well. Kenyan courts admit electronic records under the Evidence Act Cap 80, but admissibility turns on how the record was made and who can speak to it. A bare screenshot taken casually is the weakest form. Capture the listing properly, early, and before the seller notices attention; the digital evidence note on this site explains how.
Two things matter most: register your mark in the country of manufacture before your supplier or a third party does, and put clear IP terms in the supply agreement. Many jurisdictions award rights to the first to file rather than the first to use, and brand owners often discover too late that someone has registered their mark at the source. This is a core part of the practice.
It depends on the matter. Defined work such as searches, filings, and agreements is quoted as a fixed fee. Enforcement and disputes are scoped in stages, so you approve each phase knowing its cost. You will never receive an invoice you did not see coming.
Yes. The practice acts for clients across East Africa and for international brand owners whose goods or disputes touch the Kenyan market. Most matters can be handled remotely, with local counsel engaged where another jurisdiction requires it.
A few lines on your idea, your brand, your portfolio, or the dispute you are facing. You will have a reply within two working days, with clear next steps. Confidential from the first message.