Bloom Patents and Trademarks

Filing a Provisional Patent Application allows you to claims the right of Priority under the Paris Convention. What this means is that a later filed application will enjoy the date of the provisional application was filed as its effective date. It is important to have an early effective date so as to cut off intervening prior art from the issue of novelty. The later application must be filed (not later than 12 months from the date of filing of the provisional patent application.

Many countries including South Africa and the United States are members of the Paris Convention. One notable exception is Taiwan. Thus, under the Paris Convention, a South African filed provisional can support a priority claim to any later filed application in a Paris Convention country, subject to the 12 month Convention deadline.

Unfortuantely a South African filed provisional has little (if any) value from an Internatioanl marketing and fund raising standpoint. In fact the two letter country code (ZA) that prefaces South African Provisionals often creates confusion as people think that it is a Zimbabwean provisional.

We offer a unique filing service in terms of which we file US provisionals for South African inventors/companies. The US provisional can be converted into a South African Complete Patent application within the 12 month Convention deadline. We can help with this as well.

We provide you with a login to our web-based system to track and manage your filings.