News > Trade Marks

Santam has recently been a favourite for being on the receiving end of advertisement spoofs. First DialDirect made an advertisement which appears to have copied Santam’s advertisement featuring Sir Ben Kingsley in a suit walking on the beach, and now Nando’s has struck.

The 18^th annual MTN South African Music Awards was held at Sun City on 29 and 30 April 2012. The new CEO, Randall Abrahams, and his team put together a world class awards ceremony, which has been tweeted to be the best MTN SAMA ever held!

The term “cyber-squatting”, which means registering or using a domain name in bad faith with the intent to profit from the goodwill in another’s trade mark, has gained significant exposure in the last decade with the exponential growth of the Internet and the concomitant increase in user traffic.  Fortunately, there is a quick, efficient and reasonably cost effective mechanism with which to combat cyber-squatting in certain name spaces, being the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Paying homage to the next generation of advertising greats – The Loeries Adams & Adams Young Creative Category

Tenacious, brave, hardworking, ‘out of the box’ , spurred on by an inner creative spirit.  These are just some of the qualities of the entrants in the Loeries Young Creatives Awards Category should have. “What’s more they represent characteristics which resonate with the Adams & Adams brand,” says Mariette du Plessis, senior partner at law firm Adams & Adams.

Chico Hamilton once said, “A lot of musicians aren't proud; they'll do other work, just to be able to play music. I guess that's the way it's always going to be - musicians will have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet”.

The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has handed down an important judgement for pharma trade marks. The case of Adcock Ingram v Cipla Medpro reconsidered the notion that pharmaceuticals sold on prescription are less likely to be confused because they are dispensed by trained professionals in regulated circumstances. In doing so the Court questioned the relevance of findings in a 1983 leading case, also involving Adcock, in contemporary society.

After a 20 year legal battle, the Federal Court of Canada has finally ruled that the well-known roar of the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer lion, which has been heard during the opening credits of movies produced by the film studio since 1924, can be registered as a trade mark in that country. The Registrar of Trade Marks had initially refused an application to register the sound trade mark application on the basis that it is not cable of being a trade mark.

Piracy: Definition – in the context of this article -

“a person who uses or reproduces the work or invention of another without authorisation”.

“Watching a tree trunk, a piece of wood or a pile of planks transform into something beautiful is what does it for me” – Mike van Heerden, emerging creative and winner of the ‘Most Creative Stand’ at this year’s Design Indaba.

25-year old Laduma Ngxokolo is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning textile designer of ethnic-inspired knitwear. A young proudly African Port Elizabeth-based designer, Laduma’s talent was nurtured early by his late mother, Lindelwa Ngxokolo.

The concise Oxford Dictionary defines GreenWashing as “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service”.