Participating countries attending the 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland reached an agreement on 17 June 2022 to partially waive intellectual property restrictions on the manufacture and production of COVID-19 vaccines for the next five years. The partial waiver provides that developing nations may authorise the use of the […]

The dispute that first piqued my interest in intellectual property law was between The Rolling Stones and The Verve over the song Bittersweet Symphony in the late 1990s. Richard Ashcroft from The Verve, sampled a few seconds from a song by The Rolling Stones to make up the distinctive string melody that plays throughout the track […]

You’ve come up with a great new idea and believe you’re the first person in the world to have that idea. As you start planning world domination, you consider whether you can patent your invention. Patents protect new inventions and give the owner a 20-year head-start as it gives the owner a right to exclude […]

OMG, OMFG, WTF!?, COOL AF – offensive and inappropriate or effing cool taglines? This is a question that was recently considered by the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa in Typo Stationery / Kathrine Marsden & Another / 2018-809F. Popular stationery store, Typo, advertised a sparkle ball point pen. The advertisement consisted of an image […]

While you channel hop between the FIFA World Cup and the tennis you may have noticed that Roger Federer is no longer resplendent in Nike apparel at Wimbledon this year and is now sponsored by the Japanese brand Uniqlo (he still wears Nike shoes though). We were very interested to read the article on the […]

In Part One of this series of articles we introduced the concept of cultural appropriation and provided an explanation of why it sits uncomfortably with most of us. In Part Two we discussed the power dynamics at play and whether that power-balance has been struck in the current IP legislation we see internationally. This article by Myriam […]

Part one of this series by Myriam Christmann was titled The Thorny Issue of Cultural Appropriation and served as an introduction to the topic in general and introduced the idea that the remedy to widespread cultural appropriation could be achieved through carefully-drafted intellectual property laws. This post is an overview of the developments that led to the […]

In the South African context, we are regularly confronted by examples of what is labelled as “cultural appropriation”. What is cultural appropriation and where is the line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation? In this guest post (the first in a series of posts on this topic), Myriam Christmann introduces us to the concept and […]

“Cars have four wheels. Hoodies have hoods. It’s amusing to me when someone says this is an original hoodie. Bro… it’s a hoodie ” @kanyewest If you have opened Twitter at all this week you would have no doubt encountered Kanye West’s latest tweets. His tweets are coming thick and fast, covering his musings on […]

AB InBev offers its patented technology for free to microbrewers after patenting a new brewing innovation The Guardian reports here that AB InBev, the World’s largest brewer, has developed a greener way to put bubbles in beer. This innovation may reduce the company’s CO2 emissions by 5% which is said to be the equivalent to the […]