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.

Ethiopia has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

Ethiopia has not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Performances and Phonograms Treaty.

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.

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.