Smit & Van Wyk, Inc.

South African Patents – Procedure For Filing An Application

The procedures for filing applications for South African patents are briefly described below.
There are two routes that one can follow to file South African patents.

The first entails a provisional application and then the complete patent application. The second option is to file for a complete application directly. We recommend the first route for filing South African patents for the following reasons:

• If you still want to make changes to the invention, you will be able to do so in the 12 month period allowed before having to file the complete patent application.
• It provides you the opportunity to file at the earliest possible date ensuring that your patent application will have priority over a patent application filed later even if that patent application is a complete patent application.
• You will be able to test the market in the twelve month period before investing a large amount of money to register the complete patent. If the market studies indicate that the commercial exploitation value is not enough you will not have lost a lot of money in full scale production and patent registration.
• It affords you the opportunity to establish contacts, demonstrate the invention and attract potential investors for the South African patents for which you have applied.

South African patents are filed at the South African Patent Office at CIPRO.

Since the South African Patent Office unlike the US Patent Office, is not an investigating office, it is your responsibility as applicant to ensure that the invention is novel, not obvious to someone skilled in the art, and useful in industry or agriculture.

As such you will require the assistance of an intellectual property attorney to assess whether the patent meets all the requirements. In addition, applications for South African patents must be complete and according to requirements.