At-a-glance:
South African Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office
Postal address: PO Box 429, Pretoria, 0001
Physical address: The Dti campus (Block F - Entfutfukweni)
77 Meintjies Street, Sunnyside, Pretoria, South Africa
Tel:...
[more]
At-a-glance:
South African Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office
Postal address: PO Box 429, Pretoria, 0001
Physical address: The Dti campus (Block F - Entfutfukweni)
77 Meintjies Street, Sunnyside, Pretoria, South Africa
Tel: +27 (0)11 254 9405,
Fax: +27 (0)11 254 9406
Email:
contactcentre@cipro.gov.za
Website:
www.cipro.gov.za
Patent and trade mark filings for 2010 grew marginally compared to 2009. According to figures from CIPRO, 2,593 patents from national clients were filed in 2010 and 5,156 from foreign clients. This marked a 4% drop in filings from local clients but a 1% overall increase in applications. It is no doubt a positive sign compared to the 18% drop in business between 2008 and 2009.
On the trade mark side, filings increased across the board by 14% on 2009 to 21,974, with the biggest increase coming from foreign applications.
Many of the biggest court cases of the year were connected to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Firms picked up mandates to work on enforcement, ambush marketing and anti-counterfeit strategies for companies including FIFA, Nike, Adidas, Oakley, Umbro and Manchester United. Elsewhere firms handled a mix of disputes, among them 'Bavaria Girls' v FIFA, Puma v Rampar Trading, Waterford Wine Estate v Waterford Wedgewood and Nu-World v Diageo and others.
However some practitioners were expecting more contentious matters coming from FIFA. "There was a lot of activity in trade mark but much of it has been settled out of court", says a lawyer, adding "companies are wary of the cost of court action and they want to have control, and when you are settling you have more control". Another development eating away at court cases is the increasing use of the Advertising Standards Authority.
Two debates continued in the market, the first revolving around protection for traditional knowledge in trade mark, design and copyright. The parliament has been debating the incorporation of protection of traditional knowledge by way of amendments to the existing Trade Mark, Design and Copyright Act. However IP professionals predominantly argue for a separate chapter of the bill. "There has been severe opposition from professionals," says a partner. "The new amendments are being applied to the TM, Designs and Copyright Act – we need a totally separate piece of legislation as there are some fundamental clashes, for example over novelty requirements when the fact is that some of the knowledge has been around for hundreds of years; there is also a question of ownership."
"The government is trying to do the right thing, the debate is not whether it should be done, and all agree with the academic principal of protecting the traditional knowledge of our country," says another partner.
The second development was legislation to protect publicly owned IP, or IP developed through public or part-public funding. "It is very important legislation (equivalent to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US) to ensure that publicly funded research will have some positive societal impact," says a partner. The system to protect in 2011 had not yet been fully realised.
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