Programme Director;
Chief Judge James Smith, Judge of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board;
Mr James Pooley, Deputy Director, World Intellectual Property Organisation;
Ms Astrid Ludin, Commissioner of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission;
Ms Sherry Knowles and Prof Jonathan Youngleson, Co-Organising Chairpersons of this conference, together with Commissioner Ludin
Ladies and gentlemen
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our international guests, as well as all South African participants.
It is a great pleasure to be here with you at the opening of this conference on “Creating and Leveraging Intellectual Property in developing countries.” The title aptly suggests that intellectual property can be an effective lever for development, particularly for a country like ours, with the commitment we have made to migrate from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based one.
Over the years, the engine of wealth creation has been shifting from physical, tangible assets to intellectual capital, or intangible assets. Competitive advantage is created through the strategic management and use of IP.
The World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness reports have consistently brought our attention to the strong correlation between the protection of intellectual property rights and a nation’s competitiveness. A strong IP regime boosts investor confidence, as investors have comfort that their rights as IP-holders will not be infringed upon.
Accordingly, a strong IP foundation serves as an attractor of direct foreign investment. Developing countries characterised by weak IPR have proven to be less attractive locations for foreign firms; and indeed feature at the bottom of the WEF Competitiveness Index. It follows therefore, that an effective intellectual property system constitutes an essential ingredient in addressing the development needs of a country.
International benchmarking exercises clearly indicate that countries such as South Korea and China have developed their economies primarily through government intervention in their local systems of innovation to build on their competencies in manufacturing.
There is a strong correlation between their economic growth and their patenting rate. In his keynote address to the WIPO Ministerial conference on Intellectual Property for least developed countries, Chulsu Kim said the following:
“The intellectual property system was an important catalyst for the development of indigenous technology by Korean companies, several of which have become global market leaders.
Korea’s spectacular transformation from a poor farming economy in the 1960s, with a per capita income of less than US $100 to a highly industrialized country with a per capita income of US $12,000 today, resulted from a systematic economic and trade development policy that included incentives for technological innovation and the development of domestic intellectual property assets”.
Intellectual Property is a relatively new concept for many developing countries and public research institutions. South Africa's Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act came into effect in 2010. The National Intellectual Property Management Office, known as NIPMO, was subsequently set up to implement the Act.
The introduction of this legislation was brought about by the realisation that South African publicly financed research institutions collaborate on a global scale with countries that have strong IP regimes. In cases where our IP regimen shows signs of not being watertight, IP may be lost through collaboration agreements.
In addition to giving policy guidance where required, NIPMO provides support to the offices of technology transfer at our publicly funded research institutions. A rebate of up to 50% of patenting costs and access to IP tools for informed decision making are provided to institutions. This has led to significantly improved IP management in our universities and other research institutions.
NIPMO and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of the Department of Trade and Industry, as the key players in the field, are collaborating through IP education and awareness programmes.
The Commission and the Technology Innovation Agency recently signed a partnership agreement aimed at stimulating local IP registered with the Commission. This will allow customers to receive assistance during the development, registration, protection and commercialisation of their innovations.
Through these agencies our government is now ensuring that the ideas and inventions of South African innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and scientists are not only protected but supported in their journey to the market.
All publicly financed R&D institutions have now aligned their IP policies to this Act, with fully operational offices of technology transfer. The ability to protect IP also strengthens their ability to source funds and provides incentives to researchers to produce innovations.
Over the past 10 years, we have systematically refined the South African IP management regime. Regrettably, this was preceded by a few painful lessons in our failure to fully exploit the value of a number of patents.
If you are lucky enough to live near the sea, you have in all likelihood seen the "dolosse" an invention of the late East London harbour engineer, Eric Merrifield. The dolosse concept was not protecte, and is now used in harbours, breakwaters, jetties and coastlines across the globe to dissipate water energy.
Today, the market value of the dolosse invention runs into billions of Rands. Our efforts to create a strong IP regime are geared towards ensuring that such avoidable losses never again occur.
The Department of Trade and Industry is currently in the process of finalising the National Policy on Intellectual Property. This policy is aimed at creating an environment conducive to economic growth and development, while strengthening intellectual property mechanisms to improve confidence and attract investment, as well as to promote research, development and innovation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will agree with me that the value of an IP regime must be measured in terms of its economic value to a country. Harnessing R&D and innovation is becoming a priority for policymakers in developing countries.
The challenge for developing countries is to reform their IP regimes, while limiting the potentially adverse effects of improved protection; and to facilitate the access of local entrepreneurs to the IPR system. the greatest level of economic efficiency occurs with the widest possible dissemination of new knowledge.
The paradox, however, is that if innovations and new knowledge are openly accessible to all, inventors and companies will have little incentive to commit resources to innovation or researchers to produce that new knowledge.
It is therefore crucial to ensure that the fine balance between research, knowledge dissemination and exploitation is maintained. Many new life-changing products, especially pharmaceutical and biotech products, would simply not have made it to the market without adequate IP protection. It is therefore important that we support our firms to generate intellectual property and patents in order to enhance their global competitiveness.
I should add though, that although patenting is a common IP management tool, it is by no means the only one. Traditional or indigenous knowledge is an important part of a country's intellectual property. It is in this context that my department launched the National Recordal System earlier this year as an initiative to record, preserve, protect and promote South Africa's invaluable wealth of indigenous knowledge.
A good and well known example of a South African company that has developed a considerable competitive advantage based on IP is Sasol, which is now a multinational company.
However, such success does not simply fall from the sky. A culture of innovation and technology creation plays a pivotal role, and intellectual property protection plays no small role in this.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is quite clear that a balanced IP regime can be a powerful lever for social and economic growth in developing countries. Countries have to develop their capacities to invent and innovate.
Our continent has been lagging behind developed nations in this regard. We need to collaborate with each other, and share knowledge and our collective experiences, so that Africa can compete with the best in the world.
We need to develop the capacity to create and leverage the intellectual property that is so essential to the development of developing countries. That, after all, is the theme of your conference.
I wish you great wisdom in your deliberations!
