STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: Many people still view patents and trademarks as business or legal concepts with little relevance to their own lives. To address this gap World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) member states decided in 2000 to designate an annual World Intellectual Property Day celebrated on 25 April seeking to educate people globally about what intellectual property is, and its significance in improving their welfare and quality of life.

To mark this momentous occasion I’m joined in the Summit TV studio by South African Minster of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena.

Mosibudi, we talk about intellectual property, trade marks, patents - in the old days a lot of people though this to be the domain of the developed countries, but I know our government is very much committed to innovation, science and technology - can you give us some insight into why we are so committed to that?

MOSIBUDI MANGENA: Those developed countries are developed precisely because they have been very particular on issues of intellectual property - on patents, copyright. They are very meticulous when it comes to those things. We think that it is important if we are to develop - if we are to look after the interests of our country, our people and especially of our children in the future - we have to ensure that we look after those interests ourselves.

The South African research environment is quite vibrant - it might be small, but there’s quite a lot of talented researchers at our universities and science councils. We spend literally billions of rands every year supporting the CSIR, the universities and other research environments. We have not been looking after our IP properly.

We are basically a resource-based economy - those resources like minerals and so one will run out one day. We need now to build a economy based on knowledge - we’ve got to mine the knowledge that’s being produced by our people at our universities and the other institutions, and protect the intellectual property that arises from that and move towards the knowledge economy that we’ve been talking about - but for that to happen means we’ve got to have an intellectual property regime that’s well regulated and robust where everyone is conscious, and they know what needs to be done.

Presently that is not the case. We have adopted a 10-year innovation plan. That means of course that once intellectual property rights have been looked after we need to find ways and means of mining that - so we are establishing the Technology Innovation Agency. Again that’s one more weapon and one more mechanism in the same process to take South Africa away from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: So it’s very clear from government we can’t depend on our mineral and natural wealth. Let’s look at a different angle to that - South Africa is a resource based economy currently, but we also have huge natural resources in the form of animal and plant diversity - how is your department capitalising on that benefit that we have that’s unique worldwide?

MOSIBUDI MANGENA: There is an array of legislation and measures that fall under the different departments. My department has the National Indigenous Knowledge Office (NIKO) that’s part of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) - and as you’ve rightly pointed out we are the third most biodiverse country in the world, with up to a million species of organisms whether that’s plant or animal - and the vast majority of our people have for centuries been using this biodiversity for their own survival.

What has been lacking is research and development to incorporate that into our system of innovation. NIKO is meant to co-ordinate efforts amongst the different players, other government departments, research institutions, indigenous knowledge holders and practitioners and so on. Our role is to co-ordinate activities and ensure we patent that knowledge and register the intellectual property that exits in those communities, find ways and means of sharing benefits amongst researchers, amongst the people who are active in that environment making a living.

At the same time to find ways and means of preserving - we shouldn’t only explore it, we should also preserve it so future generations will be able to benefit from those resources that we have.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: I’m amazed in terms of the proactive role government is taking - in previous governments we never had a Department of Science and Technology, you mention NIKO, the new Technology Innovation Agency, and the public-funded IPR Bill that’s currently under development - so your department has a culture of facilitation co-ordinating a lot of these efforts in order for us to capitalise on that knowledge, and especially indigenous knowledge...

MOSIBUDI MANGENA: Apart from the institutions that we have that fall directly under the DST such as the CSIR and others by and large my department doesn’t do any science and innovation itself - we depend on the wealth of innovation and expertise that exists out there. We play a facilitating role - we create the environment so the energy, expertise and knowledge of our people - that those skills might be able to thrive.

We seek to bring everybody on board to the best of our ability to play a role and make a contribution - and share with us what they know, and what’s happening at the coal face. We are not at the coal face - but our people who are in our laboratories as we speak doing their work know best what is going on there. We seek to tease out their knowledge and expertise - and how they see the way forward. In the process of these many interactions we learn a lot from the other government departments, from the institutions, from the individual scientists and so on.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: I know you are passionate about the youth - given that we are celebrating World Intellectual Property Day what message would you like to broadcast to the youth of this country?

MOSIBUDI MANGENA: I know there is lots of expertise in South Africa - we are capable, but sometimes we don’t know it. I think that our youth need to know that they can - that they are able, and they can contribute to what the rest of the world is doing.

We should stop believing that we can only use other people’s technologies - we can also contribute. They can make things - we can have South African cars, we can have South African cellphones - there are many other things we can make. What we need is to believe in ourselves - to believe that we can actually do it. The rest will follow.