Can you protect the information or materials you place on a blog? Well yes, is this the answer. If some of our older readers are not sure what a blog is, it is a discussion or informational website or webpage, … Read More

We have all heard recently about the court battles between Apple and Samsung and the alleged copying of each others products that’s going on. Products shapes can be protected in terms of law and one of the disputes between Apple … Read More

Well yes and no. I represent many of the Universities in South Africa and assist them on a daily basis with their social media accounts.   Facebook states on their website the following:   “People use Facebook to share their … Read More

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