This analysis was developed as part of the Edison Fellowship program at CPIP (now the Intellectual Property Policy Institute (IPPI) hosted at the University of Akron Law School). It traces the evolution of the South African framework for managing publicly funded research outcomes, and describes how the system is set up to ensure these research outcomes can be transformed into products that improve the lives of South Africans while appropriately benefitting the inventors and their R&D/commercialization partners.