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In this guide
By Onah Attorneys Inc • Updated July 2026 • Legal information, not a substitute for advice on your specific matter.
Company registration protects nothing but the CIPC register; the brand — the name customers know — is only yours when it’s a registered TRADEMARK. Every year businesses discover this the expensive way: a competitor registers ‘their’ name and the letters start arriving in reverse. Here is the registration process, the strategy, and the enforcement toolkit.
What registration gets you
A registered trademark: the exclusive right to the mark for the goods/services in its CLASSES, enforceable nationally for 10 years, renewable forever — infringement claims, urgent interdicts, customs recordals, and the ® that changes negotiations. Unregistered brands rely on passing-off (prove reputation, prove confusion — expensive litigation with uncertain reach). Registration converts a factual fight into a certificate.
Before filing: search and strategy
Availability search FIRST (register + market + domains + social handles): filing into an existing similar mark buys an opposition, not a brand. Strategy: which of the 45 NICE classes cover today’s business AND the 3-year roadmap (class 25 clothing without class 35 retail is half a wall); wordmark vs logo (wordmarks protect broader; logos protect the look — budget for both if it matters); colour/shape marks for the ambitious. Distinctiveness rules: coined and arbitrary names register easily; descriptive ones (‘Joburg Best Plumbing’) fight for their lives.
The CIPC process
File per class (modest official fees; attorney-drafted specifications earn their keep at enforcement time) → examination (months; objections on distinctiveness/conflicts answered by argument or amendment) → acceptance and publication in the Patent Journal → 3-month OPPOSITION window (competitors may attack) → registration. Realistic timeline: 18–30 months to certificate — but rights date back to FILING, so file early; ‘we’ll register when we’re bigger’ is how names get lost.
Using and keeping it
Use it as registered (marks unused for 5 years become vulnerable to expungement), renew every 10 years, record licences (franchisees, distributors) properly, and police it: watch services for confusing new filings, oppositions within the windows, and demand letters at first infringement — tolerated infringement dilutes both the mark and the next case. The register is a garden, not a trophy.
Enforcement and the fights
Infringement (s34): confusingly similar marks on similar goods — interdicts, damages/royalties, delivery-up. Well-known marks get broader protection. Domain and social-handle hijacking: dispute procedures (.za DRP works and is quick). Counterfeits: the Counterfeit Goods Act’s seizure machinery plus customs recordals. And defensively: the letter YOU receive claiming infringement deserves analysis before panic — scope, classes, validity and prior use kill many claims. Both directions, the certificate-holder negotiates from altitude.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn’t my company registration protect the name?
No — CIPC name registration only blocks identical company names on that register. The trading brand needs a trademark; the confusion between the two is SA’s most common brand disaster.
What does registration cost?
Official fees are modest per class; professionally handled filings (search, specification, prosecution) are a planned business cost — a fraction of one passing-off trial or a forced rebrand.
Someone just registered a mark similar to my older brand — too late?
No: oppositions (in the window), expungement applications, and prior-use rights protect earlier genuine users. Move immediately — delay reads as acquiescence.
Should I register in other countries?
Trademarks are territorial. Exporting or planning to? File where you trade (Madrid Protocol routes exist via SA). The counterfeiter’s favourite gap is the market you ‘hadn’t gotten to yet.’
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