Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research & Development Bill [B46B-2008]: adoption of NCOP Amendments

Meeting report

Intellectual Property Rights From Publicly Financed Research and Development Bill (the Bill): Amendments effected by NCOP: Department of Science and Technology (DST) Briefing
Mr McLean Sibanda, Senior Patent Attorney, Innovation Fund, DST tabled the Department’s memorandum on the proposed amendments to the IPR-PFRD Bill, as proposed by the National Council of Provinces’ (NCOP) Select Committee on Education and Recreation. He assured the Committee that the proposed amendments did not negatively affect the IPR-PFRD Bill.

An amendment was proposed to Clause 4(2), which strengthened the Bill in that the regulations to be promulgated by the Minister would provide a basis for National Intellectual Property Management Office (NIPMO) to develop and publish any guidelines, thereby ensuring that the choices referred to in Clause 4(2) were easily identifiable. The amendment to Clause 10(1) cured the ambiguity that would have resulted from the original version of this Clause.

Members raised no queries on the amendments, and indicated their approval of them.

The Chairperson put the NCOP amendments for adoption by the Committee. The Committee duly adopted the amendments and its report on the Bill, with amendments. This would now be referred to the House.

Other business
The Minutes of various meetings were tabled, together with the Committee’s report of 30 May 2008 and 30 July 2008. The Committee made corrections to several grammatical errors in the minutes.

Members resolved that the minutes and the reports would be adopted by the Committee at its meeting on 18 November 2008.

The meeting was adjourned.