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

Chapter 15
Perspectives on Intellectual Property from
Botswana’ s Publicly Funded Researchers
Njoku Ola Ama
Abstract
This chapter outlines the findings from a case study of perceptions of intellectual property
(IP) issues among researchers conducting publicly funded research in Botswana. The
country’s emergent legal and policy framework on IP and on science, technology and
innovation (STI) shows that Botswana is actively seeking to position itself to take advantage
of IP commercialisation opportunities. However, the data from this study’s survey of publicly
funded researchers reveal low levels of awareness among the researchers of both national
and institutional IP frameworks governing the outputs of their research – and, at the same
time, an apparent desire among the researchers for there to be a combined emphasis on
commercialisation of knowledge while adhering to the principles of “open science”. The
study also found strong evidence of researcher desire for improved research climates at
their institutions, in order to foster the high-quality research necessary to feed into open
science dissemination and sharing, as well as commercialisation synergies with the country’s
parastatal and industrial entities.
1. Research problem
Owners of intellectual property (IP) will normally make works or inventions
available to the public in exchange for exclusive rights granted for a limited time.
Exclusive rights enable the IP owner to generate economic returns from protected
works or inventions. Formal IP rights may take the form of a patent, industrial
design, copyright or trademark. In many countries belonging to the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), universities and public
research organisations (PROs) that receive significant public research funding
have become increasingly alerted to the value of IP. This is, to some extent, a