A patent letter, or to use the correct phrase letters patent, are legal documents that take the form of an open unsealed letter that is given by either a monarch, head of state or government to a person or a company granting some sort of right.
The phrase is derived from the latin litterae patentes, which translates as letters lying open. A patent letter can be used for such purposes as granting city status to a town, granting ownership to public land, to grant royal assent to an Act of Parliament or, to quote an example, to create a post such as Governor General of a country.
Perhaps the most common use of letters patent is to grant a patent to an inventor assuring him of the sole right to make, use or sell his invention for a limited period of time in exchange for making public certain details of that invention. The use of the phrase in legal terms goes back to before the 14th Century.
How does one go about having a patent letter granted for a particular invention? The first thing to establish is that the invention is, in fact, novel. That is to say that the invention is completely new. To establish this fact a search has to be carried out for any prior art.
This search involves a search of all of the patent journals filed at the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) in Pretoria, and of patent databases worldwide. The South African Patent Act states that a patent may, subject to certain provisions be granted for any new invention which involves an inventive step and which is capable of being used or applied in trade and industry or agriculture.
Having established that the invention shows novelty, that it is inventive (in other words is not so obvious that someone skilled in the trade could easily have envisaged it) and that it would be useful to commerce, industry or agriculture, the inventor may file an application for provisional letters patent.
In South Africa letters patent grant to the patentee the exclusive rights to his invention for a period of twenty years. The patented invention is, in effect, the property of the patentee and is treated as property in every way.
The patent may be sold by assignment to another party, or it may be licensed for other people’s use by means of a license agreement. In such an agreement the holder of the patent retains all rights of ownership and the licensee has the right to use the invention for a fee.
The letters patent give the owner with the right to prevent all others from exploiting the invention for the life of the patent. The procedure for applying for letters patent is quite involved and it is wise to obtain the assistance of a good patent attorney to make the various applications on your behalf.
If you have any queries regarding letters patent please contact our offices and ask to speak to a patent attorney.
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