Broad patent claims over software have a chilling effect on innovation in South Africa. While South African legislation formally prohibits patents over computer programmes, the patent process itself is subject to manipulation by some multinational software vendors. Examination of the practice serves to give insight into the ways in which access to knowledge, and especially the ability to create knowledge in the developing world, are foreclosed by expansionist intellectual property claims. Such claims are not however in this instance primarily advanced through multi-lateral and bi-lateral agreements but through exploitation of systematic features of a domestic intellectual property system. FTISA raises the issue of multinational software companies abusing the laxity of the South African patent regime. The South African Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) grants patents on the basis of meeting formal requirements only – i.e. there is no substantive examination for validity.
One consequence of this is that exceptions to patentable subject matter (such as computer programs) in the Patent Act are effectively ignored in the awarding of patents. This creates an environment of great legal uncertainty for indigenous software developers and consumers. FTISA is a campaigning organisation which is representative of a broad range of social interests. It seeks to highlight the current situation, challenge its more blatant abuses and promote a positive agenda for change in the administrative and legislative framework of patents in South Africa.
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