Posts Tagged "problem"

A New Tradition In Legislation

Posted on Sep 28, 2012

A 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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Assignments of IP to non-residents: the amended Exchange Control Regulations

Posted on Jul 3, 2012

Assignments of IP to non-residents: the amended Exchange Control Regulations

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 have principally related to, inter alia, the apparent reversal of the stated policy of relaxing exchange controls or the alleged invalidity of the amendment.  In contrast, the purpose of this note is to briefly...

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Popularisation of Intellectual Property

Posted on Apr 30, 2012

Popularisation of Intellectual Property

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, goodwill, cultural expressions and the like.  This must be contrasted with tangible goods like vehicles, ships, equipment, household goods, and immovable items such as portions of land, all of which have a physical existence.  The application of the law to...

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TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE – Legislation in the NEW tradition

Posted on Sep 18, 2011

TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE – Legislation in the NEW tradition

“Ex Africa semper aliquid novi”, which can be freely translated from Latin to mean “there is always something new coming out of Africa”, said Pliny, the ancient Roman writer and scholar. Presumably then, as is the case now, the concept of “new” included an expression of sarcasm and deprecation as in “absurd, nonsensical and ridiculous”. Well, Pliny has been proved right once again. The Government is on the threshold of passing legislation to grant protection of, and the facility to derive revenue from the use of, so-called “traditional knowledge” (TK) – i.e. folklore,...

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