Freedom to Innovate South Africa

Freedom to Innovate South Africa (FTISA) is a non-profit organisation with a mission to promote and assist in the development of patent policy, legislation and practice that will benefit South African National interests, the economy and all of South Africa’s citizens.

A primary objective of FTISA is to create and defend a legislative environment in South Africa which is conducive to the development of an indigenous software sector, one in which software innovation and production is allowed to flourish and the benefits of FOSS to the developing economy, which relies heavily on information technology, is protected. Such an environment can only exist with a complete, comprehensive, legally robust and affordable enforcement of the existing exclusion of computer software from patentable subject matter in South Africa.

By acting effectively, imaginatively and constructively within our national context we intend also to contribute to the efforts of those with similar objectives internationally.

Origins

The origins of FTISA goes back to June 2006 and a dispute over a patent granted by the South African patent office to Microsoft Corporation, Redmond. The patent is entitled “Word-processing document stored in a single XML file” and it describes much of the word processing feature set of what later became known as OOXML. In an initiative started by Bob Jolliffe, then a Computer Science lecturer at the University of South Africa, and the Linux Professionals Association (LPA) with the support of Meraka Institute’s Open Source Centre, an initial request was made to Microsoft’s local attorneys, asking that their client voluntarily surrender the patent. Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, rejected this demand, and so Freedom to Innovate South Africa (FTISA) was formed as a not-for-profit voluntary association of civil society which would take the dispute further. In preparation for the potential risks associated with legal action the individual liability of its membership was limited.