The Companies and Intellectual Property and Registration Office (Cipro) has unveiled its electronic patents database to the public.
This follows an announcement by Cipro earlier this year that it would create an electronic patent database. In June, the office stated the local patent collection for the period 1988 to 2008 was being uploaded on a test environment and was expected to be operational in September.
The database currently provides access to original documents of South African patents for the period of 1984 to 2005. Users have the options to peruse the abstract, the description, claims or drawings of the patents they have searched for. The bibliographic data of all patent applications presently is also available on the system.
“Cipro is convinced that anybody who logs onto the Cipro database will be impressed by the creative and viable patents that have been registered with Cipro over the years,” says Keith Sendwe, CEO of Cipro.
The electronic database project consists of three phases, which will be rolled out over a period of time. Phase one includes the digitalisation of all granted patents in force from 1988 to 2008. Phase two will cover the patents for the period 1961 to 1987, and all the remaining patents before 1961 will be processed during phase three.
Cipro says it will expand the scope of the project on an ongoing basis in order to speed up the process.
The electronic project also forms part of a cooperation agreement with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo). As part of the agreement, 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.
”This project reflects our efforts towards our strategic goal to ensure accessibility to our services. As Cipro is mandated to register companies and intellectual property and maintain the respective documentation under the applicable legislation, Cipro is the custodian of the South African patent documentation,” the office says in a statement.
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