The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) has embarked on a project to create a South African electronic patent database.
Cipro, which is mandated to register and maintain the documentation of companies and intellectual property, says the project is aimed at improving accessibility to its services.
The office is implementing an enterprise content management solution, which will allow it to use a single e-form to capture data, perform interactive company transactions, and keep data in a uniform format that can be read by several different kinds of devices.
The patent documentation project will be implemented in three phases. Phase one includes the digitalising of all patents in force, from 1988 to 2008. During phase two, the patents for the period 1961 to 1987 will be digitalised, after which all the remaining patents, from before 1961, will be scanned as part of phase three.
Cipro also says all South African patents will soon be available on the Web site of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). As part of a cooperation agreement with WIPO, Cipro has undertaken to supply scanned images of South African patents to WIPO. In return, WIPO will perform an optical character recognition, index the bibliographic information and make the local patent collection available on its electronic patent search facility.
The local patent collection for the period 1988 to 2008 is now being uploaded on a test environment at WIPO and it is expected to be operational in September.
“We are currently in the process of scanning all South African-granted patents, according to WIPO standards and as indicated in the phases. These scanned images will be published on the Cipro and WIPO Web sites in terms of the agreement between Cipro, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and WIPO,” notes Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe.
In 2007, the DST committed R3.5 million towards the establishment of a fully searchable patent database, to be housed by Cipro, with the aim of making intellectual property information accessible to South Africans.
Sendwe explains that the agreement with WIPO, a specialised United Nations agency, is dedicated to developing an accessible international intellectual property system. The agency has a mandate from its member states to promote the protection of intellectual property worldwide, through the cooperation among states, as well as in collaboration with other international organisations.
“This means South African patents will no longer be confined to South African borders. We are just as proud of any registered patents as our entrepreneurs and are, therefore, delighted that scanned images of these patents will soon be available worldwide,” adds Sendwe.
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