South Africa - Intellectual Property Rationalisation Act

Newsletters and Bulletins / March 1999 / South Africa

South Africa - Intellectual Property Laws Rationalisation Act

In our June 1994 Newsletter (N.S. 183), we reported that applications for patents, trademarks and industrial designs filed in South Africa subsequent to April 27, 1994 would be effective for the entire territory of South Africa, including the former self-governing states, and that it was no longer necessary to apply separately for protection in Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda.

The Intellectual Property Laws Rationalisation Act of 1996, which entered into effect on January 1, 1998, was passed to rationalize the position in regard to patents, trademarks and designs in effect prior to April 27, 1994 in Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda. The principal features of the Act are as follows:

1. the current Patents Act of 1978, Trade Marks Act of 1993 and Designs Act of 1993 apply throughout the Republic of South Africa and these Acts apply to all patents, trademarks and designs registered in Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda;

2. existing South African patents, trademark registrations and registered designs will automatically extend to the whole of South Africa, including the geographical areas of the former homelands of Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda, unless equivalent rights exist in these former states; and

3. owners of patents, trademarks and designs registered in Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda had until December 31, 1998 to notify the Registrar that they wished their rights to be extended to the whole of South Africa, provided no such granted rights already subsisted in South Africa or the former self-governing states.

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