The decision of the KZN High Court in the case of Distell v KZN Wines & Spirits is interesting. The facts – Distell had a trademark registration covering whisky for the mark Knight’s Gold (with disclaimers of exclusive rights to … Read More

The South African Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) recently ruled on the Adwords trade mark issue in Cochrane v M-Systems, aka the ‘Clearvu case’. The issue is basically this: is a trade mark registration infringed when a competitor of the … Read More

Judgment in the case of Moneyweb v Media24 came out recently. The issue: had Media24, owner of the online financial news aggregator, Fin24, infringed Moneyweb’s copyright in seven articles? Each of these articles had been written by journalists for Moneyweb, … Read More

On 24 March 2016 the SA Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) handed down a judgment that, although purely procedural in nature, clarifies an important issue regarding trademark oppositions. The case: Adcock Ingram Intellectual Property v Actor Holdings. The issue: can … Read More

A long-running trademark saga came to an end when the Supreme Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the case of Distell Limited v KZN Wines and Spirits CC. The issue in this case was this: Did KZN Wines’ Black … Read More

Coca Cola is the latest company to come a cropper with shape trade marks in the EU. The General Court of the EU recently had to consider a TM application to register the shape of the Coca Cola bottle. The … Read More

Many trademark owners must be wishing that things were as easy as they are in South Africa when it comes to protecting product shapes as trademarks. After all the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2014 had no problem with Nestle’s … Read More

A notice published on 11 December 2015 under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002 (ECTA) extends the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedure that applies to .co.za names to .net.za, .web.za and .org.za names. We’ll have to wait and see … Read More

Trade mark registrations are often attacked on the basis that they haven’t been used for a continuous period of five years or longer. In many cases the trade mark owner can show use, and the focus is on other issues. … Read More

The Western Cape High Court recently handed down its judgment in the case of Truworths Ltd v Pepkor Retail (Pty) Ltd. The facts were unusual, and so is the judgment. The retailer, Truworths, had a registration for the trade mark … Read More