The CIPC API for trademark search
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What is CIPC?
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) is the South African national authority responsible for registering and maintaining trademarks, patents, designs, copyright, companies, and co-operatives. Headquartered in Pretoria and operating as an agency of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC), CIPC was created on 1 May 2011 when the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) merged with the Office of Company and Intellectual Property Enforcement (OCIPE) under the Companies Act 71 of 2008. CIPC runs the South African trademark register under the Trade Marks Act 194 of 1993, with a cumulative corpus of roughly 700,000 records dating back to 1916 and approximately 35,000 new applications filed per year — making it by far the largest and most active trademark register on the African continent.
South Africa is one of the most notable absences from the Madrid Protocol. As of mid-2026, the country has still not acceded to the WIPO Madrid system, despite South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition resolving in October 2024 to amend national legislation to allow accession. The Trade Marks Act 194 of 1993 is not fully aligned with Madrid procedures, and accession has been repeatedly delayed to give CIPC time to reduce its examination backlog. The practical consequence for anyone building cross-border trademark workflows: there is no WIPO routing for South Africa, every foreign applicant has to file directly at CIPC, and every status update lives only in CIPC's national register rather than in WIPO's international feeds.
CIPC exposes the register through IPOnline (iponline.cipc.co.za), a registered-user web portal with a free verbal-mark search and per-mark lookup tools, plus a paid special-search service for richer queries. There is no general-purpose public REST API for trademark data. CIPC grants bulk-data access case-by-case through formal data-purchase requests, and the office has a long history of data-access friction, including a 2014 platform transition that restricted data re-use and ongoing API monitoring constraints. The register is kept in English, with Afrikaans also recognised for filings. CIPC examines applications under the Trade Marks Act, advertises them in the Patent Journal, and opens a three-month opposition window from advertisement. The CIPC register is not on Signa yet. Because South Africa is not a Madrid member, there is no WIPO route for South African marks either. Join the waitlist to hear when the CIPC register is added.
Unique features
- NOT a Madrid Protocol member — South Africa is one of the largest economies still outside the WIPO Madrid system, so every foreign filing must be a direct national application at CIPC and there is no Madrid feed to cross-reference for ZA coverage
- Dual companies + IP mandate — CIPC is the single registrar for trademarks, patents, designs, copyright, companies, co-operatives, and business names, a combination that is unusual globally and means owner records connect trademark filings to South African company registrations through one office
- Sub-Saharan African hub — at roughly 35,000 applications per year and a ~700K corpus dating back to 1916, CIPC is the largest and most active trademark register on the African continent and the default first stop for African-region coverage
- Trade Marks Act 194 of 1993 examination regime — CIPC examines on absolute and relative grounds, advertises accepted applications in the Patent Journal, and runs a three-month opposition window from the date of advertisement
- IPOnline registered-user search — free verbal-mark search at iponline.cipc.co.za requires CIPC customer registration before use, with a separate paid special-search service for richer queries; there is no anonymous open search comparable to USPTO TSDR or EUIPO eSearch
- No general-purpose public REST API — bulk trademark data is sold case-by-case through formal CIPC data-purchase requests, with no self-service developer console; the office receives 20+ bulk-data requests per day and historically restricted re-use under 2014 platform terms
- CIPC application number format — applications are numbered as YYYY/NNNNN (e.g. 2024/12345), where the year prefix encodes the filing year and the suffix is a sequential identifier; Nice class is tracked as a separate field rather than embedded in the number
- English-language register with Afrikaans recognised — examination, opposition correspondence, and Patent Journal publication are conducted in English, with Afrikaans also a recognised official language for filings under South African law
CIPC API — Frequently asked questions
Everything developers ask before integrating CIPC data
Need something else? See our documentation
CIPC API basics
Coverage & South African trademark quirks
Need something else? See our documentation
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