Namibia
Information on the filing of Patents, Designs and trademarks in
Namibia
PATENT REGISTRATIONS
Namibia
is a member of the International Convention (from 1 January 2004),
ARIPO (from 24 April 2004), and of the PCT (from 1 January 2004).
Namibia
is currently in the process of enacting a new bill for the registration
and protection of patents, industrial designs, utility models, and
trademarks that will bring Namibia's law into line with modern international
intellectual property law. The enactment of this bill will hopefully
be finalized during 2004 and, until then, the below information is
still applicable.
At
present, novelty is only destroyed by prior local knowledge or use,
or sale for more than two years in any country outside Namibia.
The
requirements for filing an application in Namibia are as follows:
(a) A Power of Attorney - no legalization or notarization necessary;
(b) An Assignment of Invention (not required if the inventor(s) and
applicant(s) are the same) - no legalization or notarization necessary;
and
(c) A copy of the specification (including claims, drawings, and abstract)
in English.
Please
note that the documents listed under item (c) are required on the
day of filing. Items (a), and (b) can be late lodged subsequent to
the filing date.
An
application is only subjected to formal examination which takes place
automatically - there is no examination as to novelty.
We
estimate that the cost of filing a patent application in Namibia will
be between about US$ 1300.00 and US$ 1500.00 (excluding translation
costs, if necessary).