Prof Mostert receives Lifetime Achievement Award
Prof Frederick Mostert, extraordinary professor at Stellenbosch University and Academic Fellow of this Chair, received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Luxury Law Summit 2014 for his contribution to the luxury industry according to a report by the Global Legal Post here. Prof Mostert’s career as legal professional includes many significant contributions to legal development across the world, among others the recent landmark case involving a brand from the Richemont stable which resulted in a successful defence of IP rights in the...
read moreInterview: Prof Dean on Afropop Worldwide
Afropop Worldwide, the radio programme and online magazine dedicated to music from Africa, interviewed Prof Dean about his personal experiences during the protracted Mbube/Lion Sleeps Tonight case, how he managed to persevere despite a myriad of obstacles and his book on this case. The interview is part of the Hip Deep special programme series funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and is distributed by Afropop Worldwide to more than 115 radio stations in the USA, Europe and Africa. You can listen to the interview here or on...
read moreIP Public Lecture – Hacking Back and Hot Pursuit
THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED Please contact us for a transcript of the lecture. The Chair of Intellectual Property Law will present its annual public lecture on 15 April 2014 with Dr Frederick Mostert, Chief Legal Counsel for the Richemont Group of companies which include Cartier, Montblanc, Alfred Dunhill and Van Cleef & Arpels. The topic of Dr Mostert’s address is “Hacking Back and Hot Pursuit to Protect IP Assets – a Scoop on the TradeKey Case”. In an age of digital threats, Dr Mostert will discuss the potential methods to...
read moreJudging IP Law
On Monday this week (2 December 2013) the President of the Republic appointed several new judges to the courts of South Africa including, most notably, Maria (Mabel) Jansen SC. It is with pleasure, and no small measure of pride, that this Chair conveys its congratulations to Judge Jansen on being elevated to the South Gauteng High Court (formerly the Johannesburg High Court) and wishes her well. Following the retirement of Judge Louis Harms from the Supreme Court of Appeal, this Chair (and many others) lamented the lack of IP expertise on the...
read moreGovernment’s reflections on the world of Intellectual Property
INTRODUCTION Have you ever basked in the warm sunshine of a glorious summer’s day, in daydreaming mode, and allowed your mind simply to wander at random? You start with a thought, you turn it over in your mind, and then a point is reached where you go off at a tangent and muse over some largely unrelated thought, only to be diverted in yet another direction. Eventually you may go the full circle and come back momentarily to the point of departure, before heading off again elsewhere. Daydreaming can be a very pleasant experience and it has...
read moreNews Media: Prof Dean on plain packaging
In the past three days, six articles appeared in six different national newspapers referring to Prof Dean’s landmark inaugural lecture at Stellenbosch University regarding the unconstitutional impact of Government’s proposed ban on tobacco branding on trade mark property rights. Prof Dean was also interviewed on this topic by 702 Talk radio (listen here) and 567 Cape Talk (listen here) on this topic. The full text and podcast of Prof Dean’s inaugural lecture is available here. Click on an image to enlarge: CAPE ARGUS...
read moreInterview: Prof Dean on Cape Talk
Prof Dean was interviewed by Kieno Kammies for 567 Cape Talk radio today (31 May 2013) on World No Tobacco Day. Prof Dean discussed why Government’s proposed ban on tobacco branding (by means of plain packaging) is unconstitutional and amounts to brand genocide. The interview relates to his inaugural address and subsequent publications. This interview followed on Prof Dean’s previous interview with 702 Talk Radio (listen here). You can listen to the interview on Cape Talk radio here. Description (from Cape...
read moreInterview: Prof Dean on The Money Show
Prof Dean was interviewed by Bruce Whitfield on 702 Talk Radio for “The Money Show”. The topic of the interview was Five reasons: Why prohibiting the use of trademarks on tobacco products makes no sense. This interview followed on the topic of Prof Dean’s inaugural address at Stellenbosch University. You can listen to the radio interview here: Follow Share on...
read morePodcast: Prof Dean’s Inaugural Lecture
On 21 May 2013 Prof Owen Dean delivered his inaugural address at Stellenbosch University to a select audience of 130 academic peers, University officials and delegates. The topic of Prof Dean’s address was “Deprivation of Trade Marks through State Interference in their Usage”. The full text of Prof Dean’s article is available here. The illustrations used during the lecture is available here. You can listen to the lecture here. (NOTE to on-campus users: Open Inetkey to listen to the...
read moreLetting 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...
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