Abstract

Access to Medicines Implications of the South Africa Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act No 51, 2008

Joelle Dountio Ofimboudem

The Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act No 51, 2008 (the IPR Act) was passed in 2008 as a result of a request for such a law by the South African DST. According to the DST, such a law was necessary for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was a significant leakage of intellectual property resulting from public-funded research in South Africa into overseas jurisdictions. Secondly, the South African government could not exercise any walk-in (march-in) rights as it was constrained by the fact that different research institutions in South Africa had different approaches to managing intellectual property generated from public-funded research.