Counterfeiting continues to make the news. Locally, we’ve just had a report of a R10 million bust in the Vereeniging area, during which fake soaps, shampoos, clothing and bags were seized, and seven suspects from Malawi, Mozambique and China (no surprises there), were taken into custody.But we are increasingly getting reports of counterfeiting in product areas that go way beyond the traditional stomping ground of FMCG and luxury goods ...
We recently had a Namibian court decision in a passing off matter, in the case of Mega Power Centre CC t/a Talisman Plant and Tool Hire v Talisman Franchise Operations (Pty) Ltd. The decision is interesting for a number of reasons. First, passing off cases are fairly rare, so any new decision is welcome ...
There were two recent decisions – one in the USA and one in the UK – which dealt with the important but seldom-discussed concept of patent exhaustion. Patent exhaustion in essence means this: the initial authorised sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item, for the reason that the owner of the patent (the patentee) has been rewarded for its ingenuity by that sale ...
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it will extend its current set of six National Enforcement Initiatives through fiscal years 2014–2016. EPA’s current list of top priorities includes reducing air emissions from major industrial and utility sources, reducing contamination from mineral processing operations and ensuring that energy extraction activity complies with environmental regulations ...
There was a bit of a stir in the British press recently, with certain companies complaining that the major UK supermarket chains are now using get-ups for their own-label products that are so similar to the get-ups used by the major brand owners that consumer confusion is inevitable. An industry spokesman said this: ‘Our research shows that consumers are more likely to buy own-label products if they look like brands ...
Lindt received a nasty shock just before the Easter weekend. A 12-year legal battle ended with a German court ruling that Lindt could not use the German trade mark registration that it has for its famous Easter bunny to stop a competitor, Riegelen, from selling very similar looking confectionery – Lindt’s registration is for a sitting bunny wrapped in gold foil and featuring a red ribbon and a bell ...
The production and circulation of counterfeit products have been an economic and social problem for some time. Not only can such products pose a safety risk to consumers who use them, counterfeit products also lead to considerable lost income for legitimate businesses, decrease consumer confidence in the marketplace and are often used to finance organized crime. The retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012 ...
On March 28, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the final National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Vessel General Permit (VGP). The 2013 VGP, issued under the Clean Water Act (CWA), replaces the 2008 VGP and regulates discharges incidental to the normal operation of commercial vessels greater than or equal to 79 feet in length.1 The 2013 VGP will be effective on December 19, 2013, when the current 2008 VGP expires ...
The Supreme Court of Appeal recently handed down a rare trade mark judgment. The protagonists were Adidas and Pepkor, and the main issue was whether Pepkor had infringed certain trade mark registrations belonging to Adidas for its famous three-stripe mark. Adidas was founded by a German called Adi Dassler in 1920 ...
Just as it seemed that the South African Government’s appetitefor introducing the carbon tax was waning we were informed by the Minister of Finance that the long awaited carbon tax policy paper will be released by the end of March 2013. The carbon tax policy paper is expected to be an update of the carbon tax discussion paper that was published for comment in December 2010 ...
An interview with Weronika Pelc, the partner in charge of the Energy Law Practice at Wardynski & Partners, and Michal Barlowski, the partner in charge of the Bankruptcy and Restructuring practices at Wardynski & Partners, about shale gas projects in Poland. You recently visited Houston at the invitation of the law firm of Haynes and Boone for a seminar on shale gas mining in Poland ...
On February 5, 2013, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC’s (“TGPC”) motion for an emergency preliminary injunction preventing Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board (“EHB”) from reviewing permits issued by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) to TGPC associated with its Northeast Upgrade Project (“Project”) ...
One of the provisions of the West Virginia Horizontal Well Control Act passed in December 2011 increased the permit fees for horizontal wells from $400 to $10,000. At the time this legislation was under consideration, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman told the legislature that the increased permit fee would allow him to nearly double the Inspection and Enforcement staff within the Office of Oil and Gas, which at that time numbered 17 ...
The new Waste Act of 14 December 2012 went into force on 23 January 2013. It introduces major changes in the waste management system in Poland. The prior Waste Act of 27 April 2001 will continue to apply in certain areas, however. The new Waste Act was enacted primarily in order to implement the Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) into Polish law. The deadline for transposing the directive was 12 December 2010 ...
On January 16, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submitted the final 2013 Vessel General Permit (VGP) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. The 2013 VGP, which will be issued under the Clean Water Act (CWA), will replace the 2008 VGP and will regulate discharges incidental to the normal operation of commercial vessels greater than or equal to 79 feet in length. See 76 Fed. Reg. 76,716 (Dec. 8, 2011) ...
Total Maximum Daily Loads, or TMDLs, serve a profoundly important function under the federal Clean Water Act. They provide regulators with a systematic and comprehensive mechanism for identifying all sources and causes of water quality impairment, and then calculating the reductions needed to address the impairment in an equitable manner. But for TMDLs to be effective, they must be derived in a legally and technically defensible manner ...
On December 5, 2012, EPA issued revised enforcement guidance to assist agency personnel in exercising enforcement discretion regarding the treatment of tenants under Superfund’s bona fide prospective purchaser (BFPP) defense. (See here.) The revised guidance supersedes guidance the agency had issued on January 14, 2009 and expands some of the protections ...
A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision addressed a number of thorny issues relevant to commercial real estate disputes including whether a Plaintiff must mitigate its damages where it has made a claim for specific performance of a real estate contract. The decision has wide-ranging implications for commercial real estate developers ...
If you have ever had a project on land on which wetlands or other “waters of the U.S.” were present, you know that project was more expensive because of the costs of permitting and mitigation for wetland losses, or the presence of wetlands may have resulted in abandonment or significant revision of the project to minimize losses of wetlands or other waters of the U.S. In their prior two “waters of the U.S.” decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U ...
Grid Code amended In December of last year, the Serbian Transmission System Operator amended the Grid Code. These amendments did not substantially change the code, but did introduce changes in: - technical conditions for connecting to the grid, including specific conditions for connecting generating units, and - access to the grid. The amendments are published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia no. 02/12 ...
On Oct. 22, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by granting a right of way for the Ruby Pipeline project. Center for Biological Diversity v. Bureau of Land Management, No. 10-72356 (9th Cir. Oct. 22, 2012) ...
