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

Innovation & Intellectual Property
increased patenting and licensing on online-based science and other emergent
channels of technology and knowledge transfer (Sampat, 2002). Mazzoleni and
Nelson (2007, as cited in Sampat, 2009), argue that one of the main ways in which
publicly funded research contributes to domestic innovation and productivity is
by making knowledge and technology readily accessible to the public. The underlying
logic of this view is that the outputs of academic research disseminated via
open science contribute not only to industry, but also to future academic research
(Salter and Martin, 2001). Put another way, the argument is that greater attention
needs to be paid to the socialisation of knowledge for the benefit of society –
as opposed to a narrower focus on generating primarily commercial value from
knowledge.
In recent years, maximising the societal benefits of publicly funded
research has become a subject of debate in some African countries, particularly
those which have introduced, or are planning to introduce, legislation in
this area. South Africa (see Chapter 13 in this volume) passed a law in 2008
dealing with IP from publicly funded research (IPR-PFRD Act of 2008). Other
African countries are currently contemplating similar legislation. In Ethiopia
(see Chapter 14 in this volume), the STI Policy of 2012 has identified building
capacity to manage IP, at both national and institutional levels, as one of
its strategies. However, there is a view that African countries, in developing
policy and legislation related to IP from public research, must be careful not to
blindly mimic the approach of the American Bayh-Dole Act – an Act adopted
in national and global contexts different from the ones faced by African countries
at present (Youngleson, 2012).
2. The research
The study reported in this chapter sought to probe the potential impact of
Botswana’s IP legal and policy environment on dissemination, utilisation and
commercialisation of knowledge generated through publicly funded research.
The study was exploratory in nature. Through examination of Botswana’s legal
and policy frameworks relevant to IP from public research, and a survey of
researchers’ perceptions of the IP situation at their institutions, the study sought
to discover how Botswana’s IP environment was interacting with publicly funded
research. The primary contribution of this study is its focus not on abstract principles
or secondary literature, but on empirical data regarding the understandings
and beliefs of Botswana’s researchers.
The core of the study was a structured survey questionnaire administered
to researchers across three publicly funded research settings: (1) universities;
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