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Adidas and the stripes
By: Donvay Wegierski, Director In 2015, Adidas successfully opposed the registration of two EU marks comprising two stripes belonging to Shoe Branding Europe marks on the basis [...]
Olympic games: exclusivity and revenue
By: Donvay Wegierski, Director The protection of the Olympic Symbol, and its torch, flag and anthem is extremely important. According to the Nairobi Treaty on the Protection [...]
Copyright: blurred lines effect?
On 21 March 2018, Robin Thicke and Pharrell lost their appeal against Marvin Gaye's estate in relation to their hit song "Blurred Lines". The majority of [...]
Use it or you may lose it
INTRODUCTION In Legalwerks September 2017, the top ten reasons to register trade marks were discussed, https://werksmans.com/legal-briefs-view/top-ten-reasons-to-register-your-trade-marks/. On payment of renewal fees when due a further benefit [...]
Can TWiT.tv prevent Twitter from expanding its business? The dangers of co-existence agreements
VS An interesting spat is on the brew between TWiT.tv and Twitter. Most of us are aware of the Twitter service being a text-based micro-blogging service, [...]
Shapes can speak a thousand words
The London Taxi Company has had its UK trade mark registration of the shape of its black cab declared invalid and its claims of trade mark [...]
Trade marks TCP vs 3CP
The owner of the TCP mark has won its fight to stop the use of the confusingly similar 3CP mark by Tritof Enterprises (“Tritof”) in relation [...]
Exporters to China remain positive as new balance comes out tops in trade mark tussle
American multinational New Balance has recently been awarded the highest amount in damages to a foreign entity in trade mark infringement proceedings in China in a [...]
Are trade mark clearance searches necessary?
INTRODUCTION We are asked by clients on regular occasions whether there is a need to conduct searches of the trade marks registry before filing trade [...]
IP transactions and exchange control
In March 2017 the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) proposed certain new exemptions relating to the sale and licensing of Intellectual Property (IP) from South African [...]
Top ten reasons to register your trade marks
The significance of registering trade marks should never be underestimated by any business with countless reasons as to why you should do so. In this article [...]
The importance of trade mark and domain name registration
The launch of the .Africa domain name is currently underway as referred to in the last two editions of our newsletter, LegalWerks. All domain name applications [...]
.africa domain is here
The long awaited .AFRICA domain name extension will be available as of 3 April 2017 and will be managed by ZACR (ZA central registry). This is [...]
Are your trade marks filed properly? Key issues to consider in trade mark protection.
We refer to the article in the February 2017 edition of LegalWerks which dealt with the dangers of choosing a descriptive trade mark. In this article [...]
Truworths vs Ackermans: the importance of carefully selecting a trade mark
Ackermans has recently been successful in a precedent setting trade mark dispute against Truworths which was heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal. The trade mark [...]
