Debate over new South Africa public research rules

The adoption in South Africa of a version of the US Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, to expand intellectual property regulation by publicly-funded  institutions, has provoked debate as to whether it will enhance or  damage pharmaceutical R&D. The amendments to South Africa's 2008 IPR  from Publicly-Financed Research and Development Act would require  academic centers, including universities, to assess and report to the  government any research that has a potential commercial use.

The National IP Management Office would have the power to assume  ownership of any IP generated in a university that it considers the  latter was wrong not to patent. A comment period on the new arrangements  ended at the end of May, the Switzerland-based IP Watch said.

One concern is that the power of a third-party organization to step in  and assume ownership of IP could make private firms, such as drugmakers,  reluctant to deal with South African research centers. Andrew Rens, a  local IP expert warned that researchers under the new arrangements must  "cede their academic freedom to bureaucrats" who are likely to measure  their output in terms of the number of patents they register, regardless  of other considerations.