Smit & Van Wyk, Inc. is an intellectual property law firm that specialize in obtaining and protecting your patent, trademark and design rights. Our focus is to provide legal services for intellectual property such as patents, trademarks and designs throughout Africa. Our specialist patent and trademark lawyers serve international and local clients with patent filings [...]
1. Novelty Searches in view of obtaining patent protection for an invention: If a product or concept identical to yours is already in existence anywhere in the world then you cannot obtain patent protection for the same concept in South Africa (or in most other countries for that matter). However, should you have invented an [...]
Some of the frequently asked questions about patenting for example, a patent formula are briefly answered below. Can I patent a formula? You cannot patent formulas for Mathematics, but you can patent formula applications such as software for applying the patent formula. If something is new, original, and useful can it be patented? If it [...]
Role of Pretoria patent lawyers in defending patent rights Since South Africa doesn’t have an investigating patent office, the applicants must make sure that their inventions meet the minimum requirements for patents. As such it can happen that the patentability of an invention can be questioned by another party even when the patent has been [...]
Some of the key responsibilities regarding patent applications of the Smit & Van Wyk Gauteng patent lawyers are briefly described below. The Smit & Van Wyk Gauteng patent lawyers assess the inventiveness of the application and assist in the completion of all relevant documents to ensure that the applicant’s rights are protected to the maximum. [...]
Research results published at the GetDebit website (www.getdebit.com) indicate that patent applications published regarding prepaid debit cards have increased tremendously from 2001 to 2009. It does however, seem that there are still only a few major players regarding prepaid debit card patent applications including the likes of MasterCard, Visa, and American Express. The research published [...]
Oftentimes the terms Patent Lawyer, Patent Attorney or Patent Agent are used interchangeable. In short a person who wants to act as a patent lawyer in South Africa must be qualified in engineering and the law. The patent lawyer acts on behalf of the client regarding patent filings and oppositions. All legal aspects surrounding patents [...]
The Patent Law in South Africa requires that an invention meets three important conditions: • Novelty • Usefulness • Inventiveness Under the Patent Law the invention must be completely new. As such the patent lawyers will conduct a novelty search in trade magazines, online, through databases, and newspapers around the world to establish whether any [...]
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