Once a South African trade mark has passed theregistrar's examination it is published in the Patent Journal for 3months, during this period any interested party may oppose thetrade mark on various grounds mentioned in the Trade Marks Act1993.

Until recently the only way you could get your hands on the PatentJournal was to obtain a copy from the Government Printers. It isnow possible to view scanned copies of the Patent Journal online atwww.greengazette.co.za.

This will be an extremely useful resource for trade mark owners andIP lawyers. But with every positive there is a negative. In thissituation the negative would be that cybersquatters / typosquatterswill be able to view the Patent Journal and register similar oridentical co.za domain names possibly creating more domain namedisputes within the .za namespace.

Our advice: register yourtrade mark as a co.za domain name NOW!