Intellectual property law is part of the law that protects intellectual creations of the human mind.rnAs such, creations assume the central part in the study of the law. Copyright, being one of thernproperty rights in creations requires that any work to be protected should be original. Thernoriginality obligation is nothing but the mechanism through which the law ascertains thernexistence or otherwise of creation. Albeit there seems to be no commonly applicable standard ofrnit, the requirement of originality in a work for protection is almost universally recognized.rnDefining originality assumes greater importance in copyright law mainly because it determinesrnwhich works get protection and which wouldnâ€™t. By the same parlance, the threshold ofrnoriginality directly impacts the nature and types of works that get copyright protection. To thisrnend, different jurisdictions describe the requirement based on their unique understanding of thernconcept and due regard to the purpose of copyright.rnBy virtue of the Ethiopian copyright and neighboring right protection proclamation, only originalrnworks in the fields of literature, art and culture are protected without defining what constitutesrnoriginality.rnAssessment of originality by federal courts shows that they took originality to mean novelty andrnrule that only new works or those, which differ by their nature from previous works, arernprotected by copyright. Besides, the similarity test is widely practiced as a mechanism ofrnascertaining originality between works. Finally, courts seem to be oblivious to the existence orrnotherwise of creativity in a work in the calculation of originality. Such understanding ofrnoriginality has detached itself from both established jurisprudence and nature of copyright.