SA Government, via BioSA, funds $1 million IP initiative

The Government of South Australia has announced it will fund a new $1 million initiative over three years to help South Australia’s three main universities seek patent protection for their intellectual property (IP).

The funding, to be provide through BioSA, will provide grants to the commercialisation offices at the state’s three universities - Adelaide Research and Innovation (University of Adelaide), ITEK (UniSA) and Flinders Partners (Flinders University).

In announcing the fund, the Science and Information Economy Minister, Tom Kenyon said: “The BioSA IP Management Initiative will provide grants to better protect IP generated by researchers at the three universities, assisting them to capture and protect emerging technologies generated by that research.

“Successful IP protection and commercialisation strategies have the ability to significantly add value to, and further build our bioscience industry, which has grown significantly since BioSA was established in 2001 recording strong employment growth from around 800 to 1700.

“Over the past 10 years, BioSA has provided $32 million in project grants and this, in turn, has leveraged $300 million in additional funding,”

BioSA’s Chief Executive, Dr Jurgen Michaelis, said the three universities had indicated that patent filing competed with other resource priorities in their commercialisation budgets, making it more difficult for them to develop and manage IP protection strategies.

“BioSA is committed to providing the necessary support to ensure the growth of innovation and knowledge-based enterprises in SA, and successful IP protection and commercialisation strategies are fundamental to achieving this outcome.

“This new initiative aims to reduce the financial risk in IP protection and to promote the proactive filing of patent applications as a first step to driving successful commercial outcomes for South Australian researchers,” Dr Michaelis said.