Commercialization of Intellectual Property Assets Generated by Public Research Organizations: A Case Study of Namibia

Abstract

The impact of Namibia’s IP framework on commercialization of intellectual property assets generated by public research organizations was studied, using questionnaires and guided interviews at four public research organisations. Five respondents from each PRO took part plus twenty from the general public making up a total of fifty populations. Currently, public funds invested in relevant areas of IP such as institutional support, training and formulation of suitable legal framework in these institutions do not bear fruits while they are responsible for a large proportion of intellectual Property (IP) creation. The research study explores the intellectual property framework and examined whether they support commercialization of intellectual property assets. The desk research on two benchmarking states, Singapore and South Africa further elaborates an effective IP framework. The results indicate that lack of national intellectual property policy and unavailability of technology transfer offices both at national and institutional level remains a challenge. The study also reveals that commercialization of intellectual property assets generated in PROs is twisted by issues such as lack of entrepreneurial experience among staff in PROs as well as inadequate research infrastructure. The paper argues the government to formulate an IP policy and public research organizations to ensure that they are well equipped with both physical research infrastructures, their commercialization teams and managers poses entrepreneurial skills that would yield benefits to both PROs and industry. The study found the need for entrepreneurial PROs with direct mechanisms which support the transfer of technology from academia to industry.