Patent practice

South African patent practice is a general term that covers how patent law is practiced in this country. The law covering patents falls under the general heading of Intellectual Property, which also covers trademarks, designs and copyright. Attorneys firms who specialize in Intellectual Property law are said to have a Patent Practice. If you are an inventor and you have a novel idea that you wish to patent, then you will almost certainly have to look for an attorney firm that runs a patent practice to assist you in your applications.

In terms of South African patent practice, a patent is a set of exclusive rights that are granted by the State to a patentee for a period of 20 years in exchange for the publication of certain details regarding the invention for which the patent has been granted. These rights enable the patentee to exclude all others from manufacturing, using, selling, marketing or importing the claimed invention without the permission of the patentee. A patent is regarded as private property and in terms of patent practice it may be disposed of in the same way as other types of property. It may be licensed out for the use of others; it may be sold, licensed, assigned or transferred, mortgaged, given away, or even just abandoned. The patentee therefore enjoys all of the profit from his invention for its duration.

A good first step to take is to conduct a novelty search in order to obtain an indication of whether the invention really is new. In addition, one can also conduct a manual search at the Paper Based Disclosure Centre at CIPRO, to determine whether there are potential local threats. The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office is in Pretoria is the division of the Department of Trade and Industry that is responsible for the granting of patents.

The patent practice you are dealing with will be happy to make the application for a provisional patent on your behalf, i.e. to draft/write the technical patent specification, do the formal drawings, file the application, and liaise with the Patent Office. It will involve your giving them power of attorney and providing them with full details of your invention. This should be a written description accompanied by (if necessary) A4 drawings that show exactly how the device is made and how it operates. This description must be in sufficient detail for a technician to understand how it operates. Patent attorneys all have an engineering or science degree but are governed by ethics that prevent them from disclosing any information regarding the invention. Once granted, a provisional patent is valid for 12 months from the time of filing of the application. The 12 months is to give you time to test the market and to manufacture the device. An application for a full/complete patent must be filed, by law, by a patent attorney on your behalf within this 12 month period. After the complete patent has been granted it is published in the Patent Journal.