No Trade Mark Protection for Rubik’s Cube Puzzle
Discussion: Court of Justice of the European Union; November 10, 2016, Case 30/15, Simba/EUIPO (full text here). In this case the CJEU could further clarify how to apply the rule of European trade mark law providing that trade marks that consist exclusively of a shape or other characteristic of a product that is necessary to obtain a technical result cannot be protected. The decision is interesting for South African trade mark law, since section 10(5) of the Trade Marks Act contains an almost identical rule. Simba, a...
Read MoreA Diamond in the Rough – Technology and the Copyright Amendment Act
The Copyright Amendment Draft Bill (GG No 39028, 27 July 2015) (‘the Bill’) is by all accounts a grave misfortune and a study in amateur law-making. Enough has been said on this point to make it clear that the DTI has tripped at the first hurdle and that a re-evaluation is the only hope of achieving a grade that would admit it to the Introduction to Copyright Law 101 examination. However, it is noteworthy that the Bill contains a set of provisions that is worthy of (limited) praise and deserving of closer analysis. These are, among others, the proposed amendments to the Copyright Act...
Read MorePromotion and Protection of Investment Bill, 2013 – A Review
On 1 November 2013, the South African Department of Trade and Industry published the draft “Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill” (the “Draft Bill”) for comments. The Draft Bill comes shortly after South Africa decided to unilaterally terminate its bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) with certain European states and specifically Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. The Draft Bill is intended to promote investment by modernising the current investment regime and getting investors, whether foreign or local, to achieve...
Read MoreClean Power Technology Protection
As the pressure on “going green” increases internationally, eyes are turned to the protection of intellectual property and its mechanisms and particularly the question as to whether the World Trade Organization agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) should include special flexibilities for access and dissemination of environmental sound technologies such as they occur in the fields of health or nutrition and how can this be of benefit? It is argued that the IP system has been associated with some limitations with regards access or spread of technologies and while...
Read MoreForm Over Function – ECJ Rules On Software Copyright
Seldom does a fact bear repeating as frequently as the maxim, “There is no copyright in ideas”. And despite the regularity with which this fundamental principle of copyright law is cited, its application remains a bone of contention. Since the Statute of Anne (1710), the common antecedent of modern copyright law, this creature of statute exists exclusively for the protection of the material expression of ideas, and not the underlying ideas, facts or discoveries contained in the work. For this reason, copyright protection vests at the moment a work is recorded in physical form, and only to...
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