A patent strategy is vitally important to any business and a
balance needs to be found between being cost effective and
obtaining the most protection possible. It is often advantageous to
file a provisional patent application, including for the numerous
different components of an invention. These components could be new
inventions in themselves and, instead of linking separate
components to a single invention, capable of separate patent
protection. This gives the patentee better protection.
A basic rule of patent law is unity of invention. While a lack
of unity is not grounds for revocation of a patent in South Africa,
the Act states that a patent may only be granted for a single
invention. If a patent application contains several inventions not
linked in any way, there would be lack of unity. The filing of a
divisional patent application therefore offers the applicant the
option of obtaining patent protection for different inventions
originally disclosed in a single
