Ethiopia lacks a comprehensive regime for the protection of trade secrets.

It is reported that there is no obligation for passive infrastructure sharing in Ethiopia to deliver telecom services to end users, and it is not practised in the mobile sector and in the fixed sector based on commercial agreements.

Law No. 649/2009 gives some preferential treatment to domestic goods or services suppliers over foreign suppliers in some cases. Art. 25 states that some preference margin can be granted for works carried out by Ethiopian nationals and for consultancy services rendered by Ethiopian nationals. The preferences can also be extended to SMEs that are established in accordance with the Small and Micro-Enterprises Proclamation. The Law mandates the Minister to issue directives determining the preference margin.
According to the Federal Government Public Procurement Directive of June 2020, preference margins are prescribed in Art. 16.20.2 as follows:
- For procurement of medical equipment: 25%;
- For procurement of other products: 15%;
- For construction and consultancy services: 7.5%.
For SMEs, these margins in Art. 16.20.2 only applies in International Competitive bidding as per Art. 16.20.5 of the Directive, in contrast to a 3% margin when competing with local suppliers in national competitive bidding. The provision of preferences granted to medical equipment or other products is subject to an additional requirement of not less than 35% of the production occurring in Ethiopia, certified by a competent auditor as per Art. 16.20.3 of the Directive.

Ethio-Telecom is the incumbent telecom provider and it remained the only provider until recently with the coming into force of the Proclamation No. 1148/2019. The company is fully state-owned.

It is reported that major procurements do not go through a transparent tendering process. Obstacles to foreign participation in government procurement tenders include complicated and inadequately established procedures, capacity gaps on the part of procurement agencies, delays in decision-making, lack of public information, and the need for personal connections to effectively compete. According to the report, at least one large company has had its multi-million-dollar contract with the government abruptly modified with little explanation and no apparent due process.

Ethiopia a is not a party to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) nor does it have observer status.

The Investment Regulation No. 474/2020, implementing the Investment Proclamation No. 1180/2020, reserves some areas of investment just for domestic investors. Art. 4.22 exclusively reserves investment in media services for domestic investors only. Complementary to the investment regulation, the Media Proclamation No. 1238/2021, under Art. 22 .1 reserves investment in the media sector for Ethiopian nationals only. The Media Proclamation defines media as "news agencies and all organs established to provide news or programs or news and programs to the public via periodicals, broadcasting service, and online media".

According to Art. 5(1/f/) and 5.2 of the Investment Regulation No. 474/2020, foreign share capital in audiovisual services, including film/music production and distribution, is capped at 49%. It is not clear whether this restriction also applies online.

Art. 5 (1/e/) of the Investment Regulation No. 474/2020 (which implements the Investment Proclamation No. 1180/2020) reserves some areas of investment including advertisement and promotion for joint investment with domestic investors only. In other words, a foreign investor can only invest in the advertisement service sector in joint venture with an Ethiopian domestic investor. The scope of the law includes advertisement disseminated through the internet website being designed in Ethiopia or abroad (Section 3.3). Previously there was a ban to foreign investment in the advertising sector.

As stipulated under Art. 3(5) and 5(1/f/) of the Investment Regulation No. 474/2020, some investment areas such as postal services (excluding courier services) are reserved for a joint investment with the government of Ethiopia, while foreign investment in audiovisual service including film/music production and distribution is restricted to joint venture scheme with the nationals.

The Investment Proclamation No. 1180/2020 (implemented by Regulation No. 474/2020) prescribes a screening criterion on foreign investments in terms of minimum capital requirements. Art. 9 of the proclamation states that any foreign investor is required to allocate a minimum capital of USD 200,000 for a single investment project, in order to be allowed to invest in the country. If the foreign investor is going to work in a joint venture with a domestic investor, then the minimum capital requirement shall be USD 150,000. If the foreign investor is investing in architectural or engineering works or related technical consultancy services, technical testing and analysis or in publishing works, then the minimum capital requirement can be lowered to USD 50,000. This kind of capital requirement is one of the screening methods that the law uses to prevent small or start-up foreign investors from working in Ethiopia.

The Inventions, Minor Inventions and Industrial Designs Proclamation No. 123/1995 assigns the same protection to local and foreign rights holders, once the foreign patents are re-registered in Ethiopia. However, according to Art. 9.7, an applicant who is not domiciled or who has not established business in Ethiopia shall appoint an agent who is domiciled in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is not a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Ethiopia has a copyright regime under the Copyright and Neighboring Rights Protection Proclamation No. 410/2004. However, the exceptions do not follow the fair use or fair dealing model, therefore limiting the lawful use of copyrighted work by others. Arts. 9-11 list the exceptions, which include reproduction for personal Purposes and reproduction for teaching; among others.

Copyright is not adequately enforced online in Ethiopia. High levels of software piracy and weak enforcement are reported, which can negatively affect digital commerce. In addition, given the lack of enforcement capacity and coordination among Ethiopian Government agencies, IP enforcement is reported to be inconsistent.
It is also relevant to mention that, according to Art. 3 of the Copyright and Neighboring Rights Protection Proclamation No. 410/2004, a certain work published/printed/released or made available to the public outside Ethiopia can only receive legal protection in Ethiopia if it is published or released in the country. Otherwise, foreign right holders are not accorded national treatment as Ethiopia did not sign any international conventions on copyright.