Your Brand Isn’t Yours Until You Register It

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission is the single administrative home for company registration, trademarks, patents and designs — which is precisely why founders assume registering a company name settles the IP question. It doesn’t. A company name registration under the Companies Act tells CIPC which legal entity exists; it carries no rights to stop a competitor using a similar brand on their products or storefront. A trademark is the only registration that gives exclusive nationwide rights over a brand name, logo or slogan as used in trade. A patent protects a new invention — a process, product or mechanism — not a brand or its appearance. A registered design protects how a manufactured article looks or is configured. Copyright — covering written content, software code, photographs, designs and marketing copy — arises automatically the moment original work is created and fixed in a material form; South Africa has no general copyright registration system for these categories.

South Africa runs a single-class trademark filing system: one application, one mark, one class of goods or services. A brand operating across two classes — say clothing and an online retail service — needs two separate TM1 applications, each carrying its own official CIPC fee, currently R590 per class. From 1 January 2026, CIPC formally adopted the 13th Edition of the Nice Classification, the international system used to sort goods and services into classes — which has shifted where certain items sit (AI-as-a-service now sits explicitly under Class 42, for instance), a detail worth checking before filing if the brand touches software or digital services.

Unlike patents, South African trademark applications go through substantive examination — CIPC checks the mark against existing registrations for confusing similarity, not just paperwork completeness — followed by publication in the Trade Marks Journal and a three-month opposition window for third parties to object. Realistic, uncontested timelines run in the region of two to three years from filing to certificate, longer if the mark is challenged. A registered mark then runs for a renewable ten-year term, indefinitely, as long as renewal fees are paid.

South Africa currently operates what’s known as a non-examining (depository) patent system. CIPC checks a patent application for formal compliance — correct forms, fees, structure — but does not examine whether the invention is actually new or involves an inventive step over what already exists worldwide. That assessment is left entirely to the applicant (and their patent attorney) at filing, and is only substantively tested later if the patent is challenged in litigation or a revocation proceeding. The practical effect: South African patents are comparatively easy to obtain, but carry real risk of being knocked down if enforced against a competitor who challenges their validity.

The process typically starts with a provisional patent application — an official CIPC fee of R60, which can legally be self-filed but is rarely advisable without professional drafting, since a poorly worded provisional narrows the protection the eventual complete patent can claim. This buys twelve months to refine the invention. The complete application that follows must be filed and drafted by a registered patent attorney (self-filing is only permitted at provisional stage), and confers a twenty-year term from the original filing date, with annual renewal fees starting from the third anniversary. Official CIPC fees are minor in this process — professional drafting and prosecution costs are what actually drive the budget, and they scale with how technically complex the invention is.

The Designs Act 195 of 1993 splits registered designs into two categories. An aesthetic design protects features judged purely by the eye — shape, pattern, ornamentation — regardless of function, and runs for fifteen years. A functional design protects features necessitated by how the article works — the ribbing on a container for strength, a slot configuration in shelving — and runs for ten years. The same physical article can, in principle, be filed on both registers if it qualifies for both kinds of protection, though each requires its own separate application and its own annual renewal from the third year onward.

South Africa’s 2018 National Intellectual Property Policy (Phase I) committed to overhauling both the Patents Act and Designs Act, most significantly by introducing substantive search and examination (SSE) for patents — moving away from the current depository system toward one where CIPC actually checks novelty and inventiveness before grant. The dtic and CIPC held stakeholder consultations on the draft Patents Bill and Designs Amendment Bill in 2025, and publication for public comment was anticipated in early-to-mid 2026. As of this writing, no Patents Bill has been introduced in Parliament — the current depository system, and section 34 of the existing Act, remain the operative law. Proposed features under discussion include a phased SSE rollout starting with specific technical fields (chemistry, biochemistry, ICT, engineering), publication of applications with a window for third-party observations, a novelty grace period, and a limited post-grant opposition process. None of this is enacted, and timelines for parliamentary introduction have already shifted more than once — treat any reference to “the new SA patent system” as draft policy under active revision, not current law.

Separately, CIPC’s patent office has begun offering South African applicants access to a free substantive search and examination report through an existing international programme (originally built for PCT-route applications), on an opt-in basis — a genuinely useful early signal of an invention’s strength ahead of any enforcement decision, distinct from the still-unenacted legislative reform.

One structural fact worth planning around regardless of reform timing: South Africa is not currently a member of the Madrid Protocol, the treaty that lets a single “international” trademark registration extend into multiple countries. A South African trademark registration only protects the mark inside South Africa — a business exporting into the rest of the Southern African Development Community or further afield needs separate national (or regional, via ARIPO where applicable) filings in each market it actually trades in.

Unregistered IP shows up as a red flag well before any infringement dispute. Funders and investors conducting due diligence — the same process that increasingly checks a company’s CIPC beneficial ownership filing and B-BBEE verification standing — will ask what, precisely, the business owns that a term sheet is pricing in. A brand with no trademark, or a product with no design registration, is an asset that exists commercially but not legally, which makes it difficult to value, license, or use as security. For SMEs actively working through a funding round or preparing for a beneficial ownership or B-BBEE verification cycle, an IP register check is a natural addition to that same governance sweep — not a separate, optional exercise.