Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Innovation & Intellectual Property
Engineering and the Built Environment, and Science. In the Faculty of Health
Sciences, the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology in the School of
Therapeutic Sciences had, by 2010, filed 25 patents in a single patent class in South
Africa. The research involved drug delivery technologies to enhance the efficacy
of drugs, with the focus on improved drug delivery of existing molecules (at low
cost) as compared to the development of new molecules (with extended time to
develop/market and high cost) (Wits University, 2010, pp. 103–5). The inventors
were the most highly published in the field of pharmacy in South Africa, and were
publishing approximately 15 journal articles annually.
Between 2010 and 2012, Wits established a dedicated Technology Transfer
Unit to perform TTO functions within its IP management unit, Wits Enterprise.
Wits Enterprise is a stand-alone company, established by the university in 2002,
and offers a wide range of IP management research contracts and short courses.
The cost of patent filing at Wits is covered by a mix of public funding and
funding from the university (for the legal fees, via Wits Enterprise). Prior to the
Act, Wits made only limited financial commitments to technology transfer from
the university, because it apparently did not see value in protecting inventions if
there was no intention to exploit them commercially. In 2011, Wits introduced
funding of IP protection for the first time, and increased its budget for this activity
in 2012 (Wits Enterprise, 2012). Wits records patents through the RIMS (InfoEd)
patent database, which includes a technology transfer module and a database for
patent filings. The InfoEd system prompts the inventor or system administrator
to either file a patent or take another specific action. NIPMO has access to the
system data (Wits Enterprise, 2012).
Research-IP manager perspective
Wits research-IP managers explained that many industry funders have had to
re-evaluate their approach since the introduction of the IPR-PFRD Act, because
most industrial support had not, before the Act, been on a full-cost basis. Before
the Act, industry-funded research projects generally had additional university or
government funding, and IP from this research belonged to Wits, according to
its IP Policy. The university would then negotiate the industry funder’s rights to
the IP, e.g. rights to post-commercialisation reward. South African petrochemical
parastatal Sasol is an example of a company that has restructured its approach
since the promulgation of the Act. The company has, since the Act, developed a
policy for university research funding that allows it to retain ownership of IP from
research of high commercial value in return for paying full cost to the university
(Wits Enterprise, 2012).
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