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 […]
The introduction of the new IPR from Publicly Funded Research and Development Act is a significant milestone in empowering local universities in their negotiations with industry partners around research funding and managing the results flowing out of such research. The importance and value of intellectual property, which until recently was a vague term in the […]
“From Dickens to Dean” was the heading of one of the book reviews after the Handbook of SA Copyright Law was first published in 1987. Since then The Handbook of South African Copyright Law has substantially been rewritten and updated to the extent that it is now in its third edition. According to Mabel Jansen […]
Innovative, trailblazing new programmes offer IP Law modules to law and non-law students! The Faculty is proud to introduce the first law programme at SU specifically aimed at non-law graduates and practitioners as well as the only Master of Laws (LLM) in Intellectual Property accredited by the Department of Education as a specialised LLM in IP […]
There is a saying that goes: “The past is history, the future hasn’t come yet so live for the moment.” After this week I totally disagree. IP is the future. This pioneering short course was a combined effort of The Anton Mostert Chair of Intellectual Property at Stellenbosch University and the Law@Work Professional Development Project […]
The Exchange Control Regulations (the “Regulations”) have been amended with effect from 8 June 2012 (Government Gazette No. 35430) to provide that transfers of ownership of intellectual property from a South African resident to a non-resident now require prior Treasury approval. While this amendment to the Regulations has drawn comments or criticisms from commentators, these […]
Government, and more particularly the Departments of Trade and Industry and Arts and Culture, entered into the current controversy around the ownership of the copyright in the National Anthem by issuing a media release on 18 June 2012. With respect, its contribution to the debate evidences the same lack of knowledge and insight into Copyright Law that is apparent […]
Articles dealing with Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and claims by various parties that they hold copyright in it and are entitled to claim, and have claimed, royalties for its use and public performance appeared over the weekend of 17 June 2012 in City Press and Rapport, and possibly other newspapers. These articles claimed that, unlike enterprising […]
Gallo Music and Sting Music have locked horns in the South Gauteng Division of the High Court over copyright in certain songs named Thula Baba, Unomathemba and Siliwelile. Gallo claims that it owns the copyright in these songs and that Sting therefore required their authority to include them in the stage musical Umoja and that […]
INTRODUCTION Intellectual property is commonly regarded as an esoteric branch of the law. It is characterised by being complex and until recently it has been a little understood and somewhat discrete area of the law. Its complexity stems from the fact that it has as its subject matter intangible items such as marks, ideas, concepts, […]
