The objectives of Socially Responsible Licensing (SRL) are mainly to ensure that licensing of intellectual assets is negotiated and transacted in a manner conducive to providing access to essential medicines and other life enhancing innovations. The goals of SRL are to make available to society globally, but in particular to developing countries, such technologies at affordable prices and to make proprietary research tools widely available for the advancement of knowledge. This can be achieved by adopting licensing practices which add a dimension of social responsibility to the pursuit of economic objectives, without necessarily compromising the latter. This approach does not affect business transactions in developed countries where significant profits can still be achieved but ensures access for the least developed countries, which are often disregarded in commercialization strategies due to perceived low profitability. This paper addresses recent developments in South Africa, specifically the newly enacted legislation on IP emanating from publicly funded research, and some practical examples of how SRL strategies can be implemented.

Socially Responsible Licensing Of Health Technologies- Policy And Practice In South Africa

Rabogajane Busang, Karine Boisjoly-Letourneau, Bernard Fourie, Michelle Mulder and Harry Thangaraj

Journal of the Licensing Executives Society International (les Nouvelles).  June, 2011 – Volume XLVI No. 2