Indigenous intellectual property bill unworkable: DA

28 October 2011 - 17:11 By Sapa
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The Intellectual Property Amendment Bill in its present form is unworkable and will not provide sufficient protection to owners of indigenous knowledge, the Democratic Alliance says.

The bill -- intended to protect indigenous knowledge -- was approved in the National Assembly on Thursday.

DA spokesman Tim Harris said the ANC and the trade and industry department (dti) were determined to proceed with amending four existing intellectual property (IP) laws, rather than writing a "stand-alone" law.

"The existing laws require properties that are simply not found in indigenous knowledge," he said.

"For example, copyright protection is always for a limited period, works have to be original, have an identifiable author, and be recorded in some way."

But indigenous knowledge seldom had an identifiable author; it was passed down from generation to generation.

It was often not recorded, or even impossible to record, existing in the minds of a community.

"And it needs to be protected in perpetuity. Protections should exist as long as the community exists," he said.

The decision not to recognise these incompatibilities had created numerous complexities in the law that could make protection onerous, expensive, and, at worst, impossible.

The dti had persevered with this approach, despite professional outside assessments to the contrary, he said.

The DA also objected to, among other things, that the revised bill was not subjected to public hearings.

Public hearings were held on the first draft last year, but since then it had been fundamentally reworked.

Some of the new provisions were quite radical and untested, and might have considerable impact.

"These need to be subjected to public hearings once again."

Furthermore, the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act required that any bill that "pertains to customs of indigenous communities" needed to be referred to the House of Traditional Leaders.

"It is our view -- as well as the view of senior members of the House of Traditional Leaders -- that this bill clearly pertains to customs of indigenous communities."

Nevertheless, it had not been referred.

This was a serious breach that opened the bill up to legal challenge, Harris said.

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