Filing requirements

Requirements for filing

We can provide you with all of the documentation required for filing a design application. For full detail of the documentation required, please click here to download our pamphlet on Registration of Designs.

Representations

To enable us to file the application, we require photographs or drawings of the article or a specimen of the article so that we can prepare the necessary photographs or drawings. Seven representations are required of each view of the design, of which four have to be filed at the Designs Office and the others are for our file. Each drawing or photograph should be on a sheet of A4 size (297mm x 210mm) or in the case of an integrated circuit topography, a mask work or a series of mask works, a size which can be folded to A4 size. Photographs should, if possible, show the design against a plain background. When more figures than one are shown, these should if possible be on the same sheet and each view should be designated (ie. front view, side view, etc).

Each representation of a design which consists of a repeating surface pattern must show the complete pattern and a sufficient portion of the repeat in length and width, and should not to be of a size less than A5. The registrar may require specimens to be filed.

Classes

For the purpose of registration, goods are divided into different classes. The selection of the appropriate class or classes is extremely important because the monopoly right afforded by a registered design is restricted to articles which fall within the class in which the design has been registered

Accordingly, where a particular design can be applied to articles which are in different classes, separate design applications must be filed in each class. Once an application has been filed in any one class, express provision is made for the filing of an application for the same design (or a part thereof) and with a later date in one or more other classes.

For a full list of the classes please click here to download our pamphlet on Registration of Designs.

Informal filing

In cases of urgency, an application for registration of a design can be filed and a filing date can be obtained if the following information and documentation is provided:

• an informal copy of the representation(s);
• the applicant’s name and address;
• in which Part(s) of the Register the application is to be filed (ie. Aesthetic or Functional);
• the class(es) in which the application is to be filed;
• information as to whether the application is to be filed as a convention or non-convention application and, in the event of a convention application, particulars of the basic application, ie country, number and date from which priority is to be claimed.

The formal documents can be filed subsequently.

Procedure after filing

After the application has been filed, the designs office issues a filing receipt giving the application number and filing date. The application is then examined by the registrar. If all the formal requirements of the Designs Act and Regulations have been complied with, the registrar issues a notice of registration which gives the date of registration of the design and which contains a statement that the design is deemed to have been registered as from the effective date of the design application. A South African design application is usually registered within six to nine months after filing.

The registration is then advertised in the official journal. The application documents (which have been kept secret by the designs office up to this stage), then become open to public inspection.

Registration destroys the novelty of the design in most countries, so that later non-convention applications in most countries will no longer be possible. For further information on convention and non-convention applications, click here to download our pamphlets on Registration of Designs, and click here to download our pamphlet on Patents Utility Models and Registered Designs Protection in Countries other than the Republic of South Africa.

The examination by the registrar is for formal correctness only. The design is not examined to determine whether or not it complies with the novelty requirements of the Designs Act. The registration of a design is therefore not a guarantee that the design is ‘new’. Registration is also not a guarantee that the registered design is valid, nor that the registration of the design cannot be revoked, nor that the exploitation of the design will not infringe existing intellectual property rights. It is the duty of the applicant to investigate the registrability of the design and to satisfy himself regarding the strength of the design registration.

Please also note that the mere filing of a design application does not entitle the applicant to restrain others from making, importing, using or disposing of articles included within the class in which the design application has been filed. This right to exclude others only arises after registration of the design. Your right to exploit the design is subject to such exploitation not infringing the rights of others.