Smit & Van Wyk is a leading African IP and franchising law firm, providing practical legal solutions to protect, manage and enforce your patent, trade mark, copyright and franchising rights.
Smit & Van Wyk deals with Intellectual Property in Africa. Our qualified patent, trademark and copyright lawyers have the knowledge, experience and resources to give expert legal advice regarding intellectual property portfolios.
Our specialist team of IP lawyers will assist with patent (and PCT) applications in South Africa and across Africa as a whole. We can assist with the filing, prosecution and enforcement thereof. Our firm serves as a portal to the African continent for many foreign associates and multinational corporations. Smit & Van Wyk acts as a patent agent as well as a trade mark agent for the whole African continent (including in OAPI and ARIPO).
With a passion for development in Africa, our patent department has built a trusted network of African agents over the past decade which allows us to extend these service offerings across the African continent.
File in Africa
We provide a full range of Intellectual Property services in all African countries where protection is available. We can provide information on the filing requirements in each of the African countries and can also offer information on the various regional IP organisations such as ARIPO, OAPI and the Madrid protocol. We work with a network of trusted and knowledgeable agents to develop the best possible solution to each of our clients’ needs for trade marks, designs and patents in Africa.
ARIPO
ARIPO (African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation) is an organisation that facilitates registration and administration of intellectual property rights for various African countries. Membership of the organisation is open to all Member States of the African Union (AU) or of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). As of 31 December 2020, the organisation comprises of 21 member states. We assist with the filing, prosecution and enforcement of your patents, designs and trade marks for all ARIPO member states.
OAPI
The OAPI (Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle) member-states include the majority of the African French speaking countries. The Bangui Agreement encourages cooperation between all the member-states by sharing common objectives in Intellectual Property matters. OAPI is a regional filing system which covers Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo. A single application automatically covers all countries mentioned above. It is not possible to designate the countries of interest.
Patents
Our patents team specialise in the identification, protection, prosecution and enforcement of patents in Africa. Our registered patent attorney’s cover a number of technical disciplines, including: mechanical, electrical, electronic and software engineering as well as biotechnology, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and chemical engineering.
A PCT patent application will ensure that by filing one international patent application, that applicants can simultaneously seek protection for an invention in other PCT member countries.
The Paris Convention is an international agreement which helps creators ensure that their intellectual property is protected in other countries.
Trade Marks
Our trade mark department consists of a team of skilled and qualified trade mark lawyers and paralegals who work closely with our clients to build interpersonal relationships and to structure the best bespoke trade mark filing programs suited to the client’s specific needs and requirements.
The Nice classification assists in filing a trade mark application for the correct goods and/or services as it is an international standard for the classification of goods and/or services.
The Madrid Protocol is an international treaty designed to simplify the international trade mark registration process. Using this process, registrants are able to complete a single application, in their home language, that can then be applied to over 90 member countries.