There are many ways to pay a South African patent or trademark renewal, as South African law does not require applicants to pay patent and trademark annuities through the firm that filed the trademark – you are free to use any of these 5 option: Option 1 – Simplest (Vicennial Renewal) If the patent was … Read more
Nov 27th, 2025About the GlobalIPCo system GlobalIPCo is an intellectual property (IP) management system that focusses on African countries, filing about 5,000 applications per year for +3,000 registered users (including +130 Chinese law firms). The GlobalIPCo system includes the following modules: Module Description Client-side user interface Used by clients to: upload cases; and instruct filing, publication, responses … Read more
Nov 16th, 2025Types of patents In 2024, South Africa had 33 active patent firms that filed 10,042 patents, comprising 1,143 provisional patents and 8,899 complete patents. Fields of technology Of the complete patents, more than half were filed in the fields of: Pharmaceuticals (just over 25%) Computer technology Chemical engineering Mechanical engineering machines Civil engineering Biotechnology Patent … Read more
Nov 15th, 2025African filings benefiting from automation African patent and trademark filings are increasing due to a significant reduction in cost since 2021, largely due to online systems (primarily, the GlobalIPCo system extending across Africa. Firms associated with the GlobalIPCo management system (primarily, S&Z in South Africa, Crown & Shields and A MPECK in Cameroon) have also … Read more
Nov 9th, 2025Tip 1 – check whether your brand is registrable Don’t commit to a brand only to find out in a year”s time that you won’t be able to register / use it. First do a search. S&Z provides a free identical trademark search tool. Tip 2 – start by protecting only the basics Although, you … Read more
Nov 5th, 2025Tip 1 – conduct a search The best way to reduce your patent cost is not to spend money on an invention that cannot be protected. Conducting a worldwide patent search is easy and free. If the “new physical feature you have added” already exists anywhere else in the world, it cannot be patented. Tip … Read more
Oct 23rd, 20251. Best value trademark firm Sibanda & Zantwijk is the most affordable trademark firm, offering the same trademark pricing to both South African and foreign clients. Instead of charging for each step of the trademark process (filing, acceptance, publication and issuance of the certificate), S&Z charges a fixed price for the entire process (filing to … Read more
Oct 11th, 2025Easily calculate the 30/31 month PCT national phase patent filing deadline from the PCT “base date” (i.e. the earlier of the priority date or the PCT filing date). 30 month countries Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Canada (extendable for further 12 months), Chile, China (extendable … Read more
Jun 28th, 20255 reasons why not to file patents in Africa: 1️⃣ Africa is the Continent with only the second largest population (albeit, the highest population growth). 2️⃣ Africa is only slightly larger than China, US, India, Germany, UK, France & Spain combined. 3️⃣ Only 44% of sub-Sahara African GDP is covered by filing a SANi combination … Read more
Jun 22nd, 2025Why Africa? Africa is the continent with the second highest population and the highest population growth: It is forecast to become the most populous continent: “Africa is a young continent – the youngest in the world with 60% of the population under the age of 25.” Africa is also a large continent – larger than … Read more
Jun 15th, 2025Nigerian PCT national phase patents fall due for renewal on each anniversary of the PCT filing date. This means that at least one renewal / annuity fee is typically payable on filing a Nigerian patent. In total, 19 renewals are payable for a Nigerian patent. Nigerian patent renewal costs range from $28 per year to … Read more
Jun 8th, 2025The SANi combination patent covers the most GDP and the economic powerhouses of Arica – South Africa and Nigeria. In fact, the SANi patent covers countries with a greater total GDP than ARIPO and OAPI combined. ARIPO covers the most countries – up to 22 member States (Botswana, Cape Verde, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, … Read more
May 31st, 2025S&Z started as an IP firm focussing on restructuring multinationals for tax. It then designed and created prototypes for inventors before combining with GlobalIPCo to develop an IP platform for Africa. Today, S&Z is the largest filer of South African patents (2022-2024). Now, S&Z focusses on the SANi patent / trademark – the “best option … Read more
May 26th, 2025Suggestions for the top 5 Nigerian patent and trademark law firms: 1. Leading filer and most technologically advanced Crown & Shields (partner: Kimi Onana) is the leading filer of Nigerian patents and trademarks – able to file large numbers of Nigerian patents and trademarks efficiently and at very competitive rates. In 2022, Crown & Shields was … Read more
May 25th, 2025The top four filers of South African patents for the past 40 months (1 January 2022 to 30 April 2025) were: Firm No. South African Patents Filed 1st: Sibanda & Zantwijk 10,477 2nd: Firm A 7,384 3rd: Firm B 6,311 4th: Firm C 2,479 Sibanda & Zantwijk is consistently the leading South African patent firm … Read more
May 17th, 2025