The KZN High Court handed down a really interesting judgment in May 2013 in the case of Distell v KZN Wines & Spirits. The decision’s interesting because it not only looks at the issues that need to be considered in a trade mark infringement claim, but it also highlights the differences between trade mark infringement and passing off ...
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 ...
In May 2013, US store Wal-Mart pleaded guilty to dumping hazardous waste in California and Missouri over a number of years. It has agreed to pay almost $82m (£54m) in civil and criminal charges. As far back as 2003 there were reported incidents where Wal-Mart staff improperly disposed of products such as bleach and fertilizer in waste bins and local sewer systems, when they should have been dealt with as hazardous waste ...
Regulation No. 4 of 2013 on Guidelines for the Resolution of Environmental Disputes Provides an Additional Step in Dealing with an Environmental Complaint before Going to Court for Settlement or an Out of Court Settlement was issued on 15 March 2013 as further guidelines for the central and regional Governments as well as parties in dispute on settling environmental disputes ...
In 1989 the eminent South African jurist (the late) Prof.Dennis Cowen expressed the view that, by the end of the 1980s, South African environmental law was “a subject struggling to be born”. Nearly a quarter of century later South African environmental law is thriving as a “subject” in a manner that Prof. Cowen is unlikely ever to have anticipated. In addition, the business of environmental law has, in recent years, witnessed a rapid evolution ...
South Africa has a rapidly evolving climate change policy environment, which is in-keeping with the country¡¦s view of itself as a developing country leader in the climate change arena. Part of the policy environment includes attention to financial mechanisms that can be marshaled in support of the response to climate change. Flowing from the notion of using financial mechanisms in this manner, the National Treasury has taken initial steps towards the implementation of carbon taxation ...
The eighteenth United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Doha, Qatar, from 26 November to 8 December 2012 – the first time that the Conference was held in the Middle East. There is some irony in the choice of location for the reason that Doha is the world’s largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gas. As is usual the Conference was a complex affair, with a plethora of meetings occurring simultaneously viz ...
ICANN is expected to announce the first set of successful applications and list of new generic top level domains later this summer. Before the new generic top level domains can be delegated, the applications need to go through an initial evaluation phase and any objections against those applications need to be addressed. Infact, the first decisions on legal rights objections to applications for new generic top level domains were only recently published by WIPO ...
Personal data regulation is a recently developed topic in the legal realm. In 1970, the first laws on the matter were issued in Europe and North America. Specifically, the first data protection law called the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz was issued in Germany on October 7, 1970, and the same year the United States Congress issued the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which controls the collection, use and redistribution of any consumer information ...
Businesses in the UK have for some time been subject to strict rules on misleading advertising, contained in the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (the “BPRs”) ...
Use of a domain name: is it a form of advertising? Following the decision in Case C-657/11 (Belgian Electronic Sorting Technology BV v Bert Peelaers, Visys NV), the rules of fairness imposed by European Directives 84/450 and 2006/114 on misleading and comparative advertising will extend to cover not just the content of a web site, but the domain name at which it is registered as well. See our commentary here ...
Under EU Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of copyright law, Member States grant authors, performers, producers and broadcasting organisations exclusive rights to authorise or prohibit reproductions of their own works ...
he designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) can result in significant and costly consequences for landowners, industry, government, and other entities—often with little if any evidence of a commensurate benefit to the species involved. In Critical Habitat and the Challenge of Regulating Small Harms, Professor Dave Owen provides a valuable contribution to assessing the role of critical habitat during consultation on federal agency actions under ESA section 7 ...
On June 13, 2013, in a seminal case on the patentability of the genetic code, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that “naturally occurring DNA … is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but that cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring.” See Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. (2013) ...
One way to change the law fast is to amend or repeal statutes in budget legislation. That is what the federal government of Canadadid in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Federal programs, staff positions and budgets for environmental science, conservation and protection have been eliminated. That leaves a lot of responsibility with the provinces and territories, and many open questions for industry. This article describes what has happened and identifies what to look out for ...
On 13 June 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its unanimous decision in the ongoing case of Association for Molecular Pathology et al v Myriad Genetics, Inc. et al 12-398, 569 US __ (2013). This case is the first brought in the US directly challenging the patentability of human genes and for that reason is extremely important to any entity involved in the biotechnology industry which relies on human genetics research as part of innovation strategy ...
Denmark has a large life science sector, including a number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies and research activities. The sector is highly regulated and covered by extensive and complicated statutory requirements, executive orders and ethical standards. Denmark has incorporated most of the EU regulation and Danish law is thus to a large extent in conformity with the general EU regulation and practice of, for example, the European Medicines Agency (‘EMA’) ...
On 25 January 2012, the European Commission decided that a substantial overhaul of data protection regulation is required and issued its proposals for change. The proposals are currently making their way through the legislative process in Brussels but, once approved, are expected to take effect at some point in 2014 ...
In June 2013, the Land and Environment Court handed down a judgment in a case concerning parent company liability for environmental pollution caused by a subsidiary, (Case No. M 11429-12). Initially, we give a brief description of the term operator followed by an account of the judgment in question ...
To the average internet user the few little letters at the end of the domain name they have just searched must seem rather trivial. Little do they know of the struggle of numerous corporations to obtain those little letters in an effort to try to stamp their individuality on the internet. Companies such as "donut.com" (who focus on registering as many as these generic top level domains or gTLDs as possible) insist that "the current Internet namespace, like ...
In September 2013, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality updated its guidance on the use of the Texas Environmental, Health, and Safety Audit Privilege Act to reflect changes recently made by the 83rd Texas legislature to allow prospective purchasers of facilities to take advantage of the protections afforded by the Act ...
