Guyana joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and acceded to the Berne and Paris Conventions in late 1994.  Guyana has not ratified a bilateral intellectual property rights agreement with the United States. 
Registering a patent or trademark can take six months or longer, but even with a completed registration, no effective enforcement mechanisms exist to protect intellectual property rights.  Patent and trademark infringement continues to be common.  Local television stations, at times including the state-owned and operated National Communication Network (NCN), pirate and rebroadcast TV satellite signals with impunity.  Most music, videos, and software for sale are pirated.  Book piracy is also widespread, especially foreign textbooks.   Some estimates show that illegally photocopied textbooks account for nearly one-third of local sales.  HBO has an ongoing issue with local firms relating to allegedly infringement of intellectual property rights.

Guyana’s laws have not been amended to fully conform to the requirements of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.  In 2001, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and International Cooperation and Ministry of Legal Affairs drafted TRIPS legislation, but the draft has not moved forward.

In any foreign market, companies should consider several general principles for effective protection of their intellectual property. For background, please link to our article on Protecting Intellectual Property and Stopfakes.gov for more resources.

In addition, note the following steps:

Check the STOPfakes website: https://www.stopfakes.gov/welcome to see if the Office of Standards and Intellectual Property has an IP Snapshot for the country in question, and link to it if available.

For more information on intellectual property rights please see our Investment Climate Statement website.