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Patents Act, 1978 (Act No. 57 of 1978)

Chapter IX : Assignment, attachment and hypothecation of patents and applications for patents

60. Assignment, attachment and hypothecation of patent or application for patent

 

 

(1)        

(a) An applicant for a patent or a patentee may in writing assign his rights in an application or patent to any other person.
(b) Upon application in the prescribed manner and on payment of the prescribed fee to the registrar, such assignment shall be recorded in the register.
(c) Unless such assignment is so recorded it shall not be valid, except as between the parties thereto.

 

(2) A patent or an application for a patent may be attached by recording the warrant of execution or attachment order concerned in the register in the prescribed manner.

 

(3) Upon the discharge of any attachment, the person who caused such warrant or order to be entered in the register shall cause that entry to be deleted: Provided that any other interested person may apply to the registrar to cause such entry to be deleted.

 

(4) An attachment shall lapse on the expiry of a period of three years from the date of recording it in terms of subsection (2), unless it is renewed within that period.

 

(5) The hypothecation of a patent or an application for a patent may on application in the prescribed manner be entered in the register.

 

(6) After the entry of an attachment or hypothecation in terms of this section, the patentee or applicant for a patent shall not alienate or encumber the attached or hypothecated patent or application for a patent or grant any licences under such patent.