Its unfortunate that the phrase sounds like an oxymoron; “intellectual property for development”. Although intellectual property statutes have their ancestry in the privileges and letters patent granted to royal favourites in the middle ages, legislatures have tried to re-purpose the monopolies to create incentives for innovation.
That the intellectual property system has failed the developing world is attested by every person who dies for want of patented drugs, every child who cannot afford books for her education, every dollar that is paid from the poorest countries in the world to information intermediaries in the richest.
That is the context in which the recommendations coming from a recent joint seminar held by DST, WIPO and JICA. Aslam has blogged the recommendations which were agreed during the seminar.
There are some hopeful signs in the recommendations. One is in point 7. “there are many criticisms of the IP system, recognised within South Africa, and that ‘open-source’ systems in IT and modern genetics…may be as effective as the traditional IP system in encouraging innovation.”
Another is recommendation 8. “There are some areas of basic science research .. that are recognised by the international community to be of such importance that they should be placed in the public domain”.
There is a also a recognition throughout the recommendations that intellectual property exists only to serve the public interest, there can be no justification for any intellectual property claim which is not at least designed to serve the public interest.
