Speaking at the at a conference on accelerating intellectual property and innovation in Cape Town, "South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission [patents and designs] registrar Elena Zdravkova said that while there were problems with the pure registration system of South Africa, a full examination system was likely to be onerous. A more attractive option would be a partial recognition system, where examinations that have been undertaken by other patent offices around the world would be taken into account to avoid duplication of work." [Couldn't agree more.] Underlining the point, the USPTO believes that "our point of stability will be approximately 10 000 examiners.” and "most USPTO examiners have multiple degrees not only in the sciences, but also in law." Engineering News
