Donvay is a Director and leads the substantial foreign trade mark division within the firm’s Intellectual Property (IP) practice area.
Donvay advises on a diverse range of IP matters with clients in many different sectors including large FMCG’s, banking and insurance, oil & gas, technology, wine and agriculture in over eighty countries worldwide. Her expertise include trade mark portfolio management; trade mark clearance searches and registration, trade mark oppositions and passing off matters; due diligence reports in IP commercial transactions; counterfeit goods and domain names. With several years of experience working in Africa, Donvay has gained valuable local knowledge of country-specific requirements, nuances and issues across Africa.
Experience: 20 years
PRACTICE AREAS
- Intellectual Property
- Trade mark portfolio management
- Trade mark searching, filing and prosecution
- Trade mark oppositions, infringements and passing off matters
- Due diligence reports in IP commercial transactions, with particular emphasis on foreign and African trade marks
- Counterfeit goods, customs recordals
- Domain names
Advises on
- The maintenance and protection of trademark portfolios internationally
- Domain name management and disputes, including all top-level domains such as .com, .net, .org and country codes such as .co.za; domain name complaints and dispute resolution; maintenance and management of domain name portfolios; domain name recovery
- Contentious matters throughout Africa
- Regularly instructed by foreign counsel concerning the maintenance and protection of client trade mark portfolios internationally
Advised / Represented / Acted on behalf of:
- Capitec Bank, which includes the maintenance and protection of its trade mark portfolio internationally; domain name management and disputes before the World Intellectual Property Organization
- Large FMCGs in contentious matters throughout Africa
Authorships
- Regular contributions to publications on IP articles
- Admitted as an attorney, 2006
- LLB, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 1999
- BSocSc, University of KwaZulu-Natal
- Ranked as a recommended lawyer by WTR 1000 | 2025 | Intellectual Property | Trademark
- Ranked as a Recommended practitioner by Who's Who Legal | 2024 | Intellectual Property | Trademarks
- Ranked as a Leading Lawyer (Band 3) by Chambers Global | 2024 - 2025 | Intellectual Property
- Recognised as one of Africa's leading practitioners in the Who's Who Legal: Thought Leaders Africa 2024
- Ranked lawyer by World Trademark Review 1000 | 2014 - 2017, 2021 - 2024
- Named as a "Trade Mark Star'" by Managing Intellectual Property's IP Stars | 2020 – 2024
- Ranked lawyer (Band 4) by Chambers Global | 2017 – 2022 | Intellectual Property
- Ranked as a recommended lawyer by Legal 500 | 2016 – 2022, 2024 | Intellectual Property
- Regularly contributes to publications on IP articles and comments to the press and radio
- Client presentations and workshops on topics relating to IP
- Praised by sources as an "excellent trade mark practitioner", with one adding that "she's great, very responsive, and she understands how US clients work"
- Shortlisted in the 2025 Managing IP EMEA Awards as IP Practitioner of the Year
