About registering your patent

Register your patent with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) to prevent other people from making, using, exercising, disposing of or importing your invention without your permission.   

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. Such an invention must be a product or a process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a new technical solution to a problem.

Patent-protection means that the invention cannot be commercially made, used, distributed or sold without your permission for a limited period of 20 years.

What you should do

• Visit the CIPC office of the Patents Registrar in Pretoria.
• Conduct a search on existing patents in the Pretoria Office of the Patents Registrar.
• Complete application forms P1, P2, P3 and P6 for provisional application.
• Pay R60 for provisional patent application.
• A provisional patent application is valid for 12 months and can be extended for another 3 months by request to the Registrar of Patents.  After that the provisional application lapses if it's is not used as a priority document for a subsequent complete patent application.
• Fill in and lodge at CIPC application forms P1, P2, P3, P6, P7, P8 and P26 for a complete patent application within 12 months of lodging your provisional application. The complete application must be signed by a patent attorney.
• It is possible to lodge a complete patent application directly without lodging a provisional patent application first. The provisional patent application is not compulsory. It is optional depending on what the applicant wishes. 
• Pay R590 for a complete patent application. 
• Publish your patent in the patent journal, published monthly electronically on the CIPC website.

Timeframe

For a patent to be registered, all the requirements must be complied with within 18 months.

How much does it cost

• R60 for a provisional patent application.
• R590 for a complete patent application.

Forms to complete

(Forms are provided in PDF format. To open PDF documents, you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader 4 or higher installed on your computer.)

• Form P1, Application for a patent and acknowledgement of receipt
• Form P2, Register of patents
• Form P3, Declaration of power of attorney
• Form P6, Provisional specification (fair description of the invention, no claims) 
  
• Form P7, Complete specification
• Form P8, Abstract and drawing
• Form P26, Statement on the use of indigenous biological resource, genetic resource traditional knowledge or use
  

Who to contact