Welcome to RCIPS online

Dr Mike Herrington, Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, announced at the GSB the surprising outcome of the Global Entrepreneurship study for 2011 - South Africa has maintained its TEA rating at the 2010 high (9.1 vs 8.9). It was anticipated that the 2010 soccer world cup bubble of entrepreneurship would have burst by 2011. The TEA rating is the "total early-stage entrepreneurial activity" measure and whilst this level has been maintained, there is no room for complacency - we are well below the median of 14%.

The GEM report is the largest global longitudinal study with 54 country reports this year, SA's 11th year of participation. A special focus is on the performance of the BRICS countries - Brazil is the best of the bunch, with SA not performing well, but ahead of Russia in last place. GEM focuses on start-up (0-3 mths) and new firms (3-42 mths) and classifies start-ups as "opportunity" or "necessity" (no other job available / 'survival') driven.

The IP team enjoyed participating in the lunchtime "display session" where the PhD students attending CHED's "Starting the PhD Journey" workshop were able to interact with various service providers to the UCT community. It was a great approach having information desks and the ability to interact with specific students on an informal basis.

RCIPS will be holding seminars on Upper Campus and at Health Sciences on "IP for Postgrads" - these provide a brief overview of IP and how it impacts postgrads at UCT. We will also be holding "IP Clinics" in departments - with a similar information table arrangement where the IP team will be available to answer questions.

The Innovation Forum launched at UCT in April with its maiden event, attended by inventors and innovation stakeholders from across the university. These fora will provide the opportunity for dissemination of information and to host debate as a “framework” for a UCT innovation strategy is developed.

Hosted by DVC Prof Danie Visser, the event saw a number of UCT innovations exhibited together for the first time – it was tremendous to be able to physically see and interact with the inventions and speak to the inventors. Invited speaker, alum Dr Richard Gordon, a Commercialisation Specialist at the Technology Innovation Agency, mentioned that when looking at university rankings often the publication and research activities of institutions are similar, but it is the commercialisation of research or innovation activity that is emerging as the key differentiator – something that has led to Caltech recently ousting Harvard from its top university ranking.

RCIPS is pleased to have two new starts, Xoliswa Madolo a Finance Administrator and Keval Harie, a Contracts Manager. Xoliswa transferred internally from Treasury and started in April, so is already rapidly getting to grips with new aspects of SAP that she is now involved with, as well as the IP database Leonardo that she will load financial information onto. Keval, a qualified attorney, started on 2 May and worked most recently at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs Inc. where he did his articles. En route to his LLB, Keval did his BA Honours at UCT. Keval brings the number of Contract Managers up to four again, which will help RCIPS maintain throughput with the ever-increasing research contract load (~ 20% increase per annum).

In the pic they are standing next to something else that is a new - a massive fireproof storage system for UCT's research contracts. With over 1300 contracts coming through in 2011 alone, RCIPS needed additional storage space to cope!

UCT inventor and surgeon, Dr John Lazarus (Division of Urology) and co-inventor John Williams (an independent engineer) have invented a novel surgical tool, the Locator, for use in large kidney stone surgery in a minimally invasive way, offering a high efficiency procedure in terms of stone clearance.

With the support of the South African Urological Association (SAUA) funding, several units have already been successfully manufactured and distributed to surgeons in university hospitals at cost, for evaluation and useful feedback. In addition, the first commercial order has been received and this too will provide important external validation of the device.

The Locator aids a surgeon to achieve precise percutaneous needle puncture by stabilising the needle for the puncture, allowing an easier and quicker puncture. This reduces procedure time and therefore requires less X-ray radiation exposure which is safer for the patient. The long radio-lucent arm also reduces X-ray exposure to the surgeon’s hands.

PST Sensors (Pty) Ltd, although established in 2010, was officially recognized as a UCT spin-off in 2011 with the conclusion negotiations around a Shareholders Agreement and assignment of intellectual property to the company.

PST Sensors is rapidly gaining traction in the market place having been awarded the Printed Electronics USA Best in Show Award at the recent 2011 Printed Electronics USA Conference in Silicon Valley (the second award for the technology). The company announced in a press release that they have entered into a Joint Development Agreement with a Norwegian technology company, Thin Film Electronics ASA, to develop printed temperature tags to monitor food and other perishable goods.

The Department of Physics' NanoSciences Innovation Centre and their spin-out nanotechnology company, PST Sensors, scooped the Printed Electronics USA Best in Show Award at the recent 2011 Printed Electronics USA Conference in Silicon Valley. This is their second major award, following on the heels of their 2010 Printed Electronics Europe Academic R&D Award.
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UCT engineers have helped a local clinician - and mother nature - in two groundbreaking surgeries repairing cleft palates. The work has earned the team Popular Mechanics' title as South Africa's Inventor of the Year.

Dr George Vicatos of UCT's Mechanical Engineering Department was named the Inventor of the Year by Popular Mechanics in its inaugural recognition of South African inventors. He also won the "Cutting Edge" category for the "Hendricks-Vicatos Maxillofacial Distraction Device" that has already been deployed on two patients to reconstruct missing bone and tissue in their upper jaws. The device is anchored on existing bone and gradually moved on a daily basis, forcing new bone and tissue to grow.

UCT has patented this ground-breaking intellectual property. The co-inventors are Mechanical Engineering postgrad student James Boonzaier and external medical doctor, Dr Rushdie Hendricks, who will be pursuing a PhD on the device at UCT.

Watch the Popular Mechanics interview with Dr Vicatos on YouTube.

Latest update: A previous version of this story noted that Ludwick Marishane had been nominated to represent South Africa at the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards in New York, US for his bath-substituting lotion, DryBath. We've just heard that Marishane has been named as the winner of this award.

A license agreement was signed with Antrum Biotech (Pty) Ltd for the commericalisation of an extrapulmonary TB diagnostic test based on IP that was created by Prof Keertan Dheda (Lung Infection and Immunity Unit).

The early-stage prototype development was supported by the UCT PreSeed Fund and the company has gone on to secure IDC funding to pursue further development. A comprehensive business plan has been developed as the basis for next-stage fund raising to take the medical device through the last phases of prototyping into trials and then commercialisation and investors are currently being sought.

Energy Sector GM of the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), Dr Tsakani Mthombeni profiled TIA's priorities in the sector at a workshop that drew attendees from the four regional universities' research and technology transfer communities. The key objectives are aligned with government requirements and are: security of supply in South Africa, the need for use of renewable resources, reduction of greenhouse gasses and countering energy costs.

Priority technologies in the 'generation' space that TIA are looking to fund include: solar, wind, combined heat and power (CHP) / Fuel Cells, Waste and Biofuels. Ocean power is 'of interest' and longer-term technologies that will be monitored are hydro (small-scale), Geothermal and Clean Coal technologies. In both the 'Distribution' and 'End User' segments, recovery and storage are understandably important as are loss minimisation, safety and efficiency. Nuclear energy was absent - it is not being followed proactively, although special projects will be considered. Within TIA other non-energy nuclear applications are being considered. Download the presentation here.

The latest range of Catalysis Test Units that are being marketed by a spin-off company that is currently being incubated within UCT will be on show at the premier catalysis conference in South Africa CATSA from 13 - 16 November 2011. New prototypes of the modular equipment, which now incorporate LabVIEW for computer automated control and data capture, will bear the trade mark "Ikey" following a recent decision by UCT to register the well-known rugby-oriented trade mark for use in a new class that will cover the equipment, extending the UCT brand. The business has grown out of the Centre for Catalysis Research in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Two other UCT inventions, the In-Situ Magnetometer and the In Situ X-ray Diffraction (XRD) Cell , will also be promoted at the event.

The National IP Management Office (NIPMO) and the SARIMA hosted a workshop on 3 August 2011 that essentially coincided with the first anniversary of the promulgation of the IP Rights from Publicly Financed R&D Act that NIPMO is mandated to implement and enforce. The workshop focused on issues that are being experienced with the implementation of the Act and although the day tended to raise more questions than answers, it certainly provided enough fodder for the guidelines that NIPMO will produce. “Its great to see the consultative approach that NIPMO is taking in developing the guidelines,” commented Dr Andrew Bailey, UCT’s IP Manager. A host of issues came to light that led to considerable debate amongst the expert panel of IP attorneys who had been invited from various SA law firms and the other delegates.