Letting the Copyright Cat Out Of The Bag
The almost endless capacity of government to waste valuable resources by embarking on half-baked, and socially costly, ideas never ceases to amaze me. What makes the situation deeply troubling (and, not just a little, ironic) is that they sometimes spend money employing consultants to tell them that they are wasting money on these enterprises. If that were the extent of government’s failure in relation to its policy shortcomings, I could, perhaps, shrug my shoulders and attempt to be philosophical about such matters. However, when government then proceeds to ignore (and, possibly,...
Read MoreHOT OFF THE PRESSES – Sui Generis TK Bill Published In The Gazette
Roll up and hear the good news! Today the new sui generis Protection of Traditional Knowledge Bill was published in the Government Gazette, signalling a major step toward the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) in South Africa. Full text of the Bill available here. This Bill is based on the Protection of TK Bill drafted by the incumbent of the Stellenbosch Chair of IP Law (CIP), Prof Owen Dean, and was tabled in Parliament by Dr Wilmot James earlier this year amid widespread and serious criticism of Government’s current attempt at protecting TK through the Intellectual Property Laws...
Read MoreBraking With Tradition
INTRODUCTION As will be apparent from perusing the articles posted on this blog indicated by the keywords “traditional knowledge”, The Vine Oracle has been forthright in its criticism and condemnation of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill which seeks to introduce a special form of protection for so-called “traditional knowledge” into each of the Trade Marks, Copyright, Designs and Performance Protection Acts (the Bill is commonly known as the “Traditional Knowledge Bill”). The Vine Oracle has been the proponent of the viewpoint...
Read MoreThe Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO) Draft Statute
Introduction Because intellectual property rights are territorial in nature (i.e. they have to be recognised by the country in which protection is sought), since the expansion of cross-border trade in the 19th century, authors, creators, designers, inventors and traders have sought similar protection in other countries to that which they enjoy in their domestic legal systems, or, at least, be afforded the protection enjoyed by nationals of the foreign country. This need initially gave rise to a number of bilateral agreements, and then multilateral treaties or conventions. These treaties or...
Read MoreA New Tradition In Legislation
The South African government has created a new tradition in drafting and processing legislation through Parliament. This tradition manifests itself in the drafting of half-baked legislation with little or no regard to the provisions of the Constitution and then fighting a huge public outcry against the legislation on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. In some instances the government then concedes that aspects of the legislation are unconstitutional and it seeks to undertake the revision of that legislation on the floor of Parliament in an attempt to circumvent the claims of...
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