In the two decades that have passed since Nelson Mandela's release from prison, everything in South Africa has been revolutionized, including science. The country has hosted big science projects. Research and development expenditure has risen from 0.4% of gross domestic product in 1994 to just under 1% in 2008. However, this percentage is still too low.

Progress is being impeded by the country's small science base. It is also being impeded by an unjust patent regime. This rewards holders of dubious patents while deterring development of beneficial competitive products and services.

South Africa's Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office awards patents without investigating the novelty of the invention. Only the documentation needs to be verified — not the substance of the product or process. If the patent application is challenged after it has been awarded, the applicant is responsible for ensuring that it is valid, and can incur substantial legal fees. Meanwhile, competitors have to monitor all new patents.

Nevertheless, South Africa ranks twelfth in the world for the strength of its patent-protection regime, on a par with France, Israel, Singapore and Switzerland (W. G. Park Res. Policy 37, 761–766; 2008). This situation arose in part because of the modus operandi and a limited expertise on intellectual-property rights. There is also the threat of sanctions by the US government, which takes action to protect US companies' patents.

South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency was established in 2008 to bridge the country's 'innovation chasm' — a gap between locally produced knowledge and the products and services developed from it. But the fault lies not in a gap, but in a paucity of locally produced knowledge. The science base is too small: for example, the percentage of South Africa's pupils enrolling in higher education is a quarter that of the United States and western Europe.

These concerns are being addressed by the government departments of trade, of industry and of higher education — but none of these has science and technology as its main responsibility. We hope that the newly formed National Planning Commission will be more effective with respect to innovation policy.