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

Perspectives on Intellectual Property from Botswana’s Publicly Funded Researchers
patents are registered by foreign entities. Botswana has few legal firms with qualified
IP professionals (e.g. attorneys, agents and licensing professionals) who are
in a position to assist during the patent life cycle, i.e. the application process, the
negotiation of a licence over patented technology and the settlement of disputes
over IP rights. The only readily available IP case found in Botswana was Botswana
Football Association and Another v. Kgamane [1998 BLR 153 (CA)]. This suggests
minimal legal activity in Botswana related to IP.
However, since the 1970s, Botswana has taken progressive steps to improve
its general IP framework. Furthermore, the country has attempted to develop the
necessary institutional infrastructure to encourage and support its objectives.
Botswana’s Vision 2016 objectives and the broad integration between MIST, its
parastatals and academic institutions such as UB are certainly steps in the right
direction. Botswana is clearly cognisant that it needs to continue to improve
its publicly funded research environment in order to stimulate research and to
attract, support and retain academic talent. The data collected and analysed in the
sections that follow provide some insights into researchers’ perspectives on the
existing public research environment.
4. Research findings Part 1: awareness,
knowledge, institutional frameworks
Respondent demographics
Of the 187 researchers who participated in the study, 61.5% were married, 28.3%
were single (never married) and 7% were divorced. The highest educational qualification
of respondents was as follows: 58.3% PhD, 34.8% Master’s degree, 5.9%
Bachelor’s degree. The age of the respondents varied as follows: 35.8% were between
40 and 49; 17.1% between 30 and 39; 16% between 50 and 59, and 22% did not state
their age. Of the respondents, 67.4% were male and 32.6% female (see Figure 15.1).
Awareness of use of IP to protect research output
The study found that 84.5% of the researchers were aware that the intellectual
output of their research activities (their IP) could be protected from being used,
sold and copied by other individuals or organisations without their permission.
Meanwhile, 11.8% were unaware of this fact, and 3.7% did not indicate. Researchers
were aware of various methods of protecting IP: copyright (89.2%), trademark
(77.8%), patent (75.9%), industrial designs (56.3%), geographical indications
(50.6%) and trade secrets (49.4%) (Figure 15.2).
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