South Africa: According to the
Parliamentary Monitoring Group’s summary of the Department of Trade and
Industry’s parliamentary debate on the Intellectual Property Law’s Amendment
Act and Indigenous Knowledge Act Implementation which took place on the 4th
of March 2020:
“The Department of
Science and Innovation explained that the Protection, Promotion, Development
and Management of Indigenous Knowledge Act (No 6 of 2019) had a very broad
scope that went beyond the protection of indigenous knowledge as intellectual
property. It discussed potential sources of conflict between it and the
Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Act (No. 28 of 2013) along with proposals
to address these. The Department of Trade and Industry explained that the
promulgation of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Act (No. 28 of 2013)
had been on hold awaiting enactment of the Indigenous Knowledge Act and how the
implementation of the two Acts would require inter-departmental collaboration.
Members of the
Committee asked who the real beneficiaries of indigenous knowledge would be,
how new offices such as the National Indigenous Knowledge Systems Office would
fit in with existing offices with similar mandates, stressed the importance of
educating the general public about the rights granted by the Acts and confirmed
the need for co-operation between several departments and entities in implementing
the legislation.
The Chairperson
instructed the Departments to establish a technical team to work on the details
arising in the meeting. The technical team should report back no later than
June 2020.”
The full
report of the meeting is available here, subject to the user subscribing to
the Parliamentary Monitoring Group’s website.
"This is going to be interesting" explains Afro Leo, "the IP Amendment Act was signed into law by the Zuma administration in 2012 under much controversy - most of it calling for a unique piece of legislation which arguably the Indigenous Knowledge Act is. The technical team will now have the arduous task of marrying the two pieces of legislation through regulations! and they report to two different departments within government ultimately run by ministers that have different conceptual outlooks." Afro Leo added that "despite the challenges, government should be urged to get on with it because there are valuable resources in the country that have little or no protection".
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