Patent South Africa

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. The patent provides protection for the owner, which gives him/her the right to exclude others from making use of that invention in any way without the consent of the owner of the patent. The protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years. Patent South Africa is conferred by the South Africa Patent Office, itself part of the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO), which in turn is a division of the Department of Trade and Industry.

You will need to obtain the necessary forms from CIPRO – these are:

• P1: Application for a Patent and Acknowledgement of Receipt and should be submitted in duplicate
and that:
• P2: Register of Patents also to be submitted in duplicate
• P3: Declaration of Power of Attorney, 1 only to be submitted
• P6: Provisional Specification, 1 only to be submitted
These forms need to be submitted along with a detailed drawing of the invention and a description of it. The wording of the description is extremely important, and it is strongly advisable to engage the services of a qualified Patent Attorney to make the application on your behalf.

Once conferred to the owner the provisional Letter Patent is valid for a period of 12 months. This period is to give you the chance to evaluate your invention and to commence manufacture and marketing. When you are quite confident that the invention is going to be successful, then an application can be made for a full patent South Africa. This final application has to be made through a patent attorney and can be made either on the traditional system or with the PCT (Patent Co-operation Treaty) international filing system. The traditional system is valid only in South Africa, and if you want protection in, say, Europe, Japan and the United States, then applications must be filed in those three countries separately. After the granting of the full patent you will have to advertise it in the Patent Journal. The patent will be valid for 20 years after the first provisional paten was granted, but you must remember to renew it annually or it will lapse.