Understanding intellectual property can supercharge innovation
- Wits Innovation Centre
Producing knowledge is a daily pursuit at universities — knowing how best to protect and draw value from it is crucial.
The Wits Innovation Centre (WIC) and Wits Libraries recently provided helpful tips on how to do this.
The entities celebrated World Intellectual Property Day, held on 26 April, and World Book and Copyright Day (23 April) by bringing together experts to share how ordinary members of the Wits community should be thinking about these issues. Since World IP Day’s theme of the year is ‘Feel the beat of IP’, there was a particular focus on creative and musical creations.
Letlotlo Phohole, the Director of the WIC, says copyright is not just about a current creation, but the knowledge systems and cultural progress linked to this. “Music and literature are not just products, but entities of history and of hope,” he says.
Professor Lynn Morris, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation at Wits, emphasises that intellectual property is valuable property. She points out that at Wits, intellectual property support is provided by entities like the WIC and Wits Libraries.
The key safeguards
As an introduction into understanding the options, Advocate Thato Maloto, who specialises in intellectual property and copyright, explains that ‘if art is your child, intellectual property is how you raise it.’
Maloto broke down the three main types of intellectual property that can protect creations:
- Trademarks are for names, logos, and shapes, and are registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) in South Africa.
- Patents are the registration of new technical solutions to problems, and are also logged with the CIPC.
- Copyright covers an original creation that exists in a practical way by giving the creator the rights to authorise who can reproduce, adapt, perform, distribute and sell the creation. It does not require registration, making it particularly tricky to regulate. “Copyright,” Maloto jokes, “is like having a child without a birth certificate.”
This is critical to understand, not only because of the need to protect creations and possibly collect royalties, but also because of the sheer size of the industry. Maloto quotes statistics like the around 120,000 songs released daily on streaming platforms, and that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that around 2.2 million books are published yearly.
There are some key identifiers or ways to protect copyright that are administered by various national and international bodies. For instance, books have ISBN numbers issued by national libraries, DOI numbers are for academic texts and the like, and ISWC numbers are for musical compositions.
Other ways to protect various forms of work and to track where it has been used, such as a song used in a video, include:
- Youtube content ID
- Blockchain immutable ownership records (eg. Audius, Verisart)
- Collective Management Organisation partnerships like SAMRO, DALRO, and CAPASSO
- Using trademarks for stage names, etc
- Using take-down measures on websites
- Notices to opt in or opt out of AI training
IP in an AI world
An understanding of intellectual property is crucial, particularly in the rapidly changing climate thanks to the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Rachel Sikwane, a commercial lawyer focusing on academic publishing at RNMS, explains that institutions and creators are still learning how to respond.
“As a result of AI and platforms like ChatGPT, a lot of the fundamental IP principles have been challenged and tested,” she says. This includes who counts as the author or inventor of material generated or developed with the help of such tools.
Another issue is whether copyrighted materials that have been used to train AI have been done so with permission and compensation. This also brings up whether there is a need for updated guidelines on AI generated content in being used in the academic sphere.
Sikwane says that one way to approach this is that large academic publishers like Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis Group, and Wiley Publishers have stepped into large financial licensing deals with AI companies. Also, legal actions in countries like the US, France, and Ireland, are pushing for clarity on these issues.
Finding a way through the complexity
As numerous as the challenges around intellectual property currently are, this has long been an area of contention and tensions. Lazarus Matizirofa, the Associate Director of Research, Scholarly Communication, Digital Services & Systems at Wits Libraries, points to a number of famous songs that have faced copyright controversy, such as Shakira’s Waka Waka (This Time for Africa).
Thankfully, there are various services available to the Wits community when considering possible intellectual property. Matizirofa says Wits Libraries offer various copyright services and consult around using copyright materials. This extends not only to individuals, but Faculties themselves, for instance, around course materials.
Matizirofa also warns that researchers should be aware of copyright policies that may be linked to their research grants. Wits Libraries can assist with understanding and fulfilling this. He also advises that there are various AI tools available that may be particularly reliable to use in the University setting, such as SCOPUS.
For patents and other intellectual property concerns around innovation and possible commercialisation, the WIC’s Innovation Support office is the recommended point of contact.
As Morris concluded in her closing comments to the event: “Our job as a university is obviously to encourage creativity, but it is to safeguard it, so that our ideas, inventions, and music aren’t stolen or disappear, but that they thrive and will benefit the people that created them.”