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 Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment (East West Link and Other Projects) Bill 2013 ('the Bill') was commended to Victoria's Legislative Assembly on 13 June 2013. The Bill principally amends the existing Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act (Vic), which governs the assessment, approval and delivery of major transport project infrastructure ...
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 ...
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 ...
Shipment in Indonesia is regulated by the Indonesian Commercial Code (“ICC”) and Law No. 17 of 2008 (the “Shipping Act”), which spawned a variety of implementing regulations. After 2008 a package of new implementing regulations to the Shipping Act sought to regulate a broad spectrum of water transportation aspects, including: • Port Affairs (Government Regulation No ...
As you may well be aware of, the Manta Multipurpose Deepwater Terminal Concession project was awarded to Hutchison by November 17, 2006. I personally assisted Hutchison in the process, from the time immediately after tendering its offer to the time the concession agreement was executed. then, Hutchison took its own path and, eventually, the relationship between the Port Authority and Hutchison was over ...
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 ...
On 27 July 2012, the Minister of Industry Regulation No. 71/M-IND/PER/7/2012 on Oversight and Control of the Alcoholic Beverages Industry (“Regulation 71”) was issued. Alcohol beverages are now divided into the following 3 categories, namely Class A – 1% to 5% ethyl alcohol; Class B – 5% to 10% ethyl alcohol; and Class C – 20% to 55% ethyl alcohol. Regulation 71 requires all alcoholic beverage industrial entities to obtain a Business License called an IUI ...
The Directorate General of Customs and Excise issued Regulation No. 39/BC/2012 on Determining Special Relationships for Tobacco Products on 12 July 2012 in order to prevent manufacturers spreading their production among their subsidiaries to avoid moving up into a higher-duty paying class. A “special relationship” is established when the result of one of three tests is positive ...
The High Court has held that a tenant's short-term storage of documents using just 0.2% of a warehouse's floor space enabled the owner to successfully claim a period of rates relief once the property became vacant again. Under current legislation empty retail property enjoys 100% rates relief for a three month continuous period. Industrial and warehouse property enjoys the same relief for a six month continuous period ...
Newbuilding contracts: When does title in the ship pass from the shipbuilder to the shipowner? Can the parties agree to change when title will pass? Usually shipbuilding contracts are negotiated on standard forms such as the SAJ form produced by the Shipbuilders’ Association of Japan and the AWES form produced by the Association of European Shipbuilders and Shiprepairers ...
A Bill to amend the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) (the Act) has been introduced into the Victorian Parliament. When the Bill becomes law, it will remove the requirement to notify the Small Business Commissioner of new leases under section 25 of the Act ...
Readers familiar with South Africa’s associated ship arrest provisions will recall that in terms of sections 3(6) and (7) of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act No. 105 of 1983, a ship, other than the one in respect of which the relevant maritime claim arose, may be arrested to enforce the claim or to obtain security for it ...
A Ruling setting forth the Guidelines to Analyze and Verify Consumer Information and Advertising Material was published in the Federal Official Gazette on July 24, 2012 to become effective on August 23, 2012 ...
The usual restrictions on Sunday trading hours have been suspended during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games ...
During the ITMA Asia + CITMA 2012 in Shanghai (12th - 16th June 2012), an exhibition of worldwide fame for textile machinery manufacturers, the Belgian company Picanol NV has at a Shanghai court successfully applied for and enforced interim injunctions to stop design patent infringements against three Chinese manufacturers, Guangdong Fengkai Machinery Co., Ltd., Shandong Liaocheng Youjia Textile Machinery Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Wanli Textile and Machinery Co ...
As a consequence of a number of copyright rulings from the CJEU, the Swedish threshold of originality requirement is being superseded by an EU originality criterion. In this article, Henrik Bengtsson, IP expert at Delphi in Stockholm, reports on the development and the possible impact on the harmonisation of Swedish copyright law ...
