Once a South African trade mark has passed the registrar's examination it is published in the Patent Journal for 3 months, during this period any interested party may oppose the trade mark on various grounds mentioned in the Trade Marks Act 1993.Until recently the only way you could get your hands on the Patent Journal was to obtain a copy from the Government Printers. It is now possible to view scanned copies of the Patent Journal online at www.greengazette.co.za.
This will be an extremely useful resource for trade mark owners and IP lawyers. But with every positive there is a negative. In this situation the negative would be that cybersquatters / typosquatters will be able to view the Patent Journal and register similar or identical co.za domain names possibly creating more domain name disputes within the .za namespace.
Our advice: register your trade mark as a co.za domain name NOW!
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