Friday, July 15, 2016

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY HARVESTING: THE WAY OUT FOR AN INDUSTRIALIZED DEVELOPED MALAWI [1]

Intellectual Property concept
Intellectual property is the protection of creations of the mind through the law. There are two broad sectors of intellectual property namely industrial Property and copyright. William Fisher holds that the term "intellectual property" refers to a loose cluster of legal doctrines that regulate the uses of different sorts of ideas and insignia.

Intellectual Property in Universities
Universities and research institutions do generate a lot of intellectual property assets. For example each student finishing university students in all Malawian public universities, as I am not sure of private universities, is supposed to do a research paper in partial fulfillment of the requirement for a degree. Most of these papers are based on the problems that our nation of Malawi is facing. This is what I refer to as a ‘solution mine’. It has always been said that a mine is a mine because it is being mined otherwise it is useless minerals.

As foresaid, these papers do offer intellectual property assets. For example in engineering students are coming up with irrigation innovations, in computer sciences software applications are being developed, in languages there are models that are being developed, just as well in law where legal problems are being solved.  

Therefore, industrialization of Malawi could even be easy by mere searching the ‘solution mine’ in the universities and research institutes. The good thing is that most of these solutions are Malawi oriented and adopted for her such that it would be easy to utilize. Why should our industry in Malawi be getting ‘solutions’ from outside Malawi and in the process sending money out as well as jobs.

Problems
1.      Publish or perish principle.
This is the idea that has been advanced in most our universities where the only way one gets the grades is when you write good academic papers and one gets promotion through publishing peer-reviewed papers as well as referred papers. This mentality has made our ‘industrialist’ to think that the university ‘solution mine’ is mere treasure of academic solutions and not practical industrial related solution.
   
2.      Lack of incentives
There is also at times the issue of incentivizing the creators of the IP.  Most of the outcomes of research consultations that are conducted by universities are wholly owned by the funders. In the long run the universities and the researches are deprived of ownership of IP.

3.      Theory to practice
The problem is that of theory based outcomes and not industry based solutions. This is related in most cases to attitude problem and not reality. There have been times that most of the researches conducted have been geared towards a theorization and at times out of touch with the solution needs of the industries.

Way out
1.      Sponsorship of researchers
It time for the industries to give resources to the universities to conduct industry related problem researches so that the solutions that have been harvested therein should be shared with the industries. For sure most of the universities have capacities in terms of human resources as well as material resources to conduct industry related solution based research

2.      Recognizing the creators
While financial rewards are sometimes available but in the long run reorganization of the creators of IP would be appropriate. For example, there could be an arrangement where the creator of the IP is also a partial own owner the IP asset so produced. This would make the universities and their researchers to willing collaborate with the industries to provide better solutions to the problems. This is moving towards encouraging universities and their researchers to engage with the industries.

3.      Industrial-University
The other way is for the universities to create their own companies that would be as a result of the universities creation of IP. For example the Polytechnic College would have its own car fabrication plant, Chancellor College could have its own Internet service provider, and LUANAR could have its own dairy product company just to mention a few examples.

4.      Digital divide utilization
Lastly, it is time to digitize the ‘solution mine’ which is available and this would make ‘mining’ by the industries easy and cheaper. In the process there is likely going to be a better synergy of the industry and the universities. This would surely bring the much needed resources and in the long run it would spar economic development for the country. When this happens the ‘zero deficit’ budget will be a reality and not a dream.

All in all it is time Malawi as country we start to take the intellectual property serious, especially how the IP assets can be commercialized for the benefit of the country. When we do this then it would be easier for the industry-university collaboration. These collaborations would increase the appreciation of Intellectual Property in the Malawian society and would lead to development of Malawi.  





[1] I am a legal Practitioner with Legal Aid Bureau, Blantyre. Feedback to pmchinguwo@gmail.com