Intellectual Property Ownership

To qualify for Intellectual Property ownership you have to first create the idea in your head and then convert your ideas into something that other people can see, i.e. make it tangible in some form or another. If you have a brilliant idea for a new invention, before you can patent that invention, it has to be registered. The idea in your head cannot be registered, and it must be transcribed onto paper in a way that is acceptable by law. In the case of a patent, this means having a technical specification drafted, which together with the requisite drawings may be filed as a patent application. In South Africa the application for a provisional or a complete patent must be submitted to the offices of CIPRO (the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office) in Pretoria. This can be done by the inventor but because of the legal requirements is best done by a patent attorney, as the drafting of a patent specification is a highly specialized affair.

There are also other types of Intellectual Property for which ownership may be claimed. Perhaps the most common of these is Copyright. Copyright is a right that does not have to be registered. Once your idea is committed to paper or some other media, it becomes yours and you are the author thereof. Generally speaking, any original work created by an individual is eligible for copyright protection. The work merely has to have been created through the application of the author’s own creativity. It is not enough for the creation to be still an idea in the author’s mind – it must have been recorded in material form. Copyright protects several different works; Literary works (lectures, speeches, reports, poems, novels, biographies), musical works, artistic works (painting, photographs, drawings and sculptures), Films, sound recordings, published editions and computer programs. Ownership of some copyrighted works is sometimes disputed. In films, for example, the owner is the person who first made arrangements for the making of the film. There are exceptions and if you would like clarification on any query, you should contact Smit & Van Wyk Inc.

Yet another form of intellectual property protection is trademarks, Trademarks are distinctive signs of some kind that are used to identify your products or services to consumers, and to distinguish them from the goods and services of other organizations. A trademark can be a word, a phrase, a logo or design, a slogan or any combination of these. A trademark is very distinctive and a valuable property. There have been many cases recently of big brand names (applied to trendy watches, clothing, handbags etc.) being copied cheaply by unscrupulous companies, imported illegally and sold under the counterfeited brand name. One of the most famous cases in South Africa related to the MacDonalds corporation, which successfully sued a South African fast food outlet for using its distinctive trade marks.

Registered/Industrial designs fall into two sub-categories, those that are aesthetic and those that are functional. Each, when registered, gives the owner protection from others using or copying the protected design.

Intellectual property owners should make the best use of the laws that are there to protect them. Smit & Van Wyk has excellent intellectual property lawyers who will litigate on your behalf and be glad to explain what the owner’s rights are.