The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) submission (7 February 2014, USTR-2013-0040) to USTR’s 2014 Special 301 Review expressed the following concerns with South Africa’s draft National IPR Policy.
South Africa
The South African Ministry of Trade and Industry published in 2013 a draft National Policy on Intellectual Property (“National IPR Policy”). While we welcome many positive perspectives and positions reflected in the draft National IPR Policy, the draft National IPR Policy contains a number of positions and observations on IPR that are a cause for serious concern and that would be counterproductive and should be removed or qualified. This includes endorsement of weaker IPR in certain fields; suggestions that weak IP protections can be an effective part of a country’s industrial policy (as opposed to being reserved for extraordinary circumstances); and adoption of a broader narrative that developing countries have gained little from the protection of IPR, despite evidence of the profound benefits that such protections bring by way of increased FDI and technology diffusion, including in South Africa today. We understand that the Ministry is currently reviewing comments received on the draft National IPR Policy, and we are hopeful that problematic elements will be removed from future drafts.