Leaders of the BRICS Nations in 2012. From left to right, Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, Manmohan Singh, prime minster of India, Li Keqiang, premier of the People’s Republic of China, and Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa. Photograph by Panalto.
would grant patents greater legitimacy and offer patent holders increased incentive to market their products. Adjusting patent fees, incorporating an examination system, and facilitating pre- and post-grant opposition should be the foundation of a revamped South African IP policy. In the implementation of a new IP policy for South Africa, a cost-effective strategy can be developed from the successes of other BRICS patent offices. To accommodate the expenses of building a vertically structured patent examination system and database—which would ensure confidentiality of patent fil-
ings and give the South African government complete control over domestic IP— patent-filing fees should be raised. An alternative would be to use aspects of other BRICS patent offices’ examination systems and patent databases. India and Brazil, for example, have shown competency and rigor in patent procedures and could absorb at least a portion of South African patent filings. Access to an established examination system would both serve to legitimize South African patents and ensure that South African patents could be marketed across the world, a factor essential to establishing South Af-
rica in the global economy. The only disadvantage to using foreign patent offices would be the increased risk of IP theft and greater difficulty in process regulation. In this author’s opinion, it would be best to create a combination of these two approaches. South Africa should establish a viable examination system within the context of a reworked patent filing protocol while also utilizing foreign patent databases to perform the search process. In this way, South Africa could retain control over its patent filings while drawing on the valuable resources of other countries.
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