To secure patent protection, we offer the following professional services:

Searches

Our patent searches solution includes patentability research and advice, patent infringement assistance, freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis, technology landscape searches and competitor review and sector activity worldwide.

Drafting Patent filing and Prosecution

We draft patent specifications for inventions and prosecution of South African patent applications, as well as international patent applications through our extensive network of trusted agents.

Patent Due Diligence

Intellectual property (IP) due diligence of a company’s IP portfolio can play a vital role in a variety of transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments, licensing negotiations, spin-offs, etc.

Focusing on patent-related aspects of a transaction, we perform patent due diligence for parties contemplating investments in technology companies. We provide a patent portfolio analysis of the target company to mitigate the risk to the investing firm.

Assignments

In a rights transfer, our team provides strategic advice and assists with preparing assignment documents and attending to assignment recordals in any country.

Licensing

If not correctly dealt with from the outset, the licensing of intellectual property can be riddled with hidden risks. We provide expert advice regarding license agreements and the terms and conditions under which these relationships should proceed. We also prepare license agreements for intellectual property rights and assist with disputes between parties concerning existing license agreements.

Recordal

All changes, including change of ownership or a change in the name of a company, affecting patent rights may, and often should, be recorded at the relevant patent offices. This task is complex and requires professional knowhow. We assist with all relevant recordals to ensure accuracy.

Our solutions aimed at enforcing patent rights include:

• Preparing legal opinions and advising clients on issues such as validity, amendment and infringement of client and third-party patents.
• Patent litigation, revocation and related litigious matters for clients.
• Advising clients on the possibility of designing around third-party rights to avoid infringement.

We conduct and report on patentability searches for inventions in all fields. To do this, we use international on-line databases, in-house electronic and hard copy databases dating back to the 1950s, the databases at various international Patent offices, and the South African patent office. These searches also cover relevant technology databases.

As part of our competitive and business intelligence services, we offer competitor and sector reviewing based on patent activity. In academia there exists the notion of publish or perish. In industry the reality in our modern society is innovate or perish.

The first step to follow innovation is the protection of innovative ideas, primarily through the patent system as the strongest form of protection for industrially applicable technology. Accordingly, monitoring patent publications of a specific competitor, or within an industry, enables one to anticipate movement by competitors, or even technological shifts in industry. This provides vital actionable intelligence for a participant in a dynamic field.

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