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No. 31745
Act No. 51, 2008
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22 DECEMBER 2008
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS FROM PUBLICLY
FINANCED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACT, 2008
‘‘intellectual property creator’’ means the person involved in the conception of
intellectual property in terms of this Act and identifiable as such for the purposes of
obtaining statutory protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights,
where applicable;
‘‘intellectual property transaction’’ means any agreement in respect of intellectual property emanating from publicly financed research and development, and
includes licensing, assignment and any arrangement in which the intellectual
property rights governed by this Act are transferred to a third party;
‘‘Minister’’ means the Minister responsible for the Department;
‘‘Nett revenues’’ means the revenue less the expenses incurred for intellectual
property protection and commercialisation of the intellectual property, as may be
prescribed;
‘‘NIPMO’’ means the National Intellectual Property Management Office established by section 8;
‘‘offshore’’ means outside the borders of the Republic;
‘‘prescribed’’ means prescribed by regulation;
‘‘publicly financed research and development’’ means research and development undertaken using any funds allocated by a funding agency but excludes funds
allocated for scholarships and bursaries;
‘‘recipient’’ means any person, juristic or non-juristic, that undertakes research
and development using funding from a funding agency and includes an institution;
‘‘regulation’’ means any regulation made in terms of section 17 of this Act;
‘‘revenue’’ means all income and benefits, including non-monetary benefits,
emanating from intellectual property transactions, and includes all actual,
non-refundable royalties, other grant of rights and other payments made to the
institution or any other entity owned wholly or in part by an institution as a
consideration in respect of an intellectual property transaction, but excludes a
donation and ‘‘gross revenues’’ shall have a corresponding meaning;
‘‘small enterprise’’ means a small enterprise as defined in section 1 of the National
Small Enterprise Act, 1996 (Act No. 102 of 1996);
‘‘this Act’’ includes the regulations made in terms of this Act.
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Objects of Act
2. (1) The object of this Act is to make provision that intellectual property emanating
from publicly financed research and development is identified, protected, utilised and
commercialised for the benefit of the people of the Republic, whether it be for a social,
economic, military or any other benefit.
(2) This Act furthermore seeks to ensure that—
(a) a recipient of funding from a funding agency assesses, records and reports on
the benefit for society of publicly financed research and development;
(b) a recipient protects intellectual property emanating from publicly financed
research and development from appropriation and ensures that it is available
to the people of the Republic;
(c) a recipient identifies commercialisation opportunities for intellectual property
emanating from publicly financed research and development;
(d) human ingenuity and creativity are acknowledged and rewarded;
(e) the people of the Republic, particularly small enterprises and BBBEE entities,
have preferential access to opportunities arising from the production of
knowledge from publicly financed research and development and the
attendant intellectual property;
(f) following the evaluation of a disclosure, researchers may publish their
research findings for the public good; and
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