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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).



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