Episode 1: What is Intellectual Property?

Synopsis

This week on Intellectual Property Stephan Lamprecht is joined by Don McRobert, an intellectual property consultant from Adams & Adams, to discuss what the term intellectual property means.

Transcript

This week on Intellectual Property Stephan Lamprecht is joined by Don McRobert, an intellectual property consultant from Adams & Adams, to discuss what the term intellectual property means.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: Welcome to Intellectual Property, our first show in a 13 part Summit TV series. This week we will give you insight on the business implication and impact of intellectual property. We are joined by IP practitioner Don McRobert from Adams & Adams Attorneys. Don, when we talk about intellectual property how would you define intellectual property for the man in the street, for the business person? Is intellectual property only for attorneys? Tell us a little bit more about it.

DON McROBERT: Intellectual property is for the everyday business person - more particularly it deals with the creativity or ingenuity of that business person. People create ideas, people invent things, and that will be covered by patents for example. People come up with a new name or a brand for their product and they market it - that’s a trademark. Other people come up with wonderful slogans, works of art or else legends or stories - that is copyright. Those are examples of intellectual property.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: Is intellectual property only important for me if I want to create something, or if I have created something? Is it important also for people that maybe consume intellectual property, or that do business in an environment where intellectual property has some impact?

DON McROBERT: Intellectual property covers a wide range of people who create - in other words the industrialist, the manufacturer, the distributor, the retailer, the wholesaler, the advertiser. Everybody has a hand in dealing with some form of intellectual property along the chain of this creation.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: If I think about some of well known brand names for example Coca-Cola, or I think about the patent for a computer product like “Intel inside” - is it important also to other people outside of scientists and engineers? Surely it’s not just the white coat lab people that use or impact on intellectual property?

DON McROBERT: In fact the best story about intellectual property starts with a small person - a small business, SMMEs. In fact one of the better stories is that of a lecturer at the University of Pretoria - in his spare time over the weekend he would go down to the patents and trademarks office because the public could go in and inspect on Saturday mornings, they were still open. He would go and check the trademark registers to determine the availability of names or brands of interest to him - he at the time was starting to dream of his future, and what he did was he registered his first brand which was “Rembrandt van Rijn” with the artist and the beret - that was the late Dr Anton Rupert and his first trademark registration. One can see the dream taking shape. The first trademark for Rembrandt van Rijn was in respect of brandy - not cigarettes like we all know. His second registration was in respect of smoking pipes. Only did he get to his third registration in due course - which was for cigarettes when the cigarette business started, and of course later on the liquor. He started like you and I - like the ordinary person on the street - with a dream to make money through intellectual property development.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: So that was the start of the whole Rembrandt group and Rembrandt legacy. Now if you think about the man in the street and some of the examples - I think you recently published a book as well regarding intellectual property - is it really becoming something that is for the masses? This is a business show - we are thinking very much about business - but when I walk in the street and I see all these brands how is intellectual property becoming more and more the domain also of the consumer, people that are the user of intellectual property?

DON McROBERT: Your everyday consumer becomes a discerning buyer - because they know the different brands of clothing or footwear, beer or whatever it may be - and they know the brand through lengthy and extensive use. Because of that use they’ve formed an opinion as to the quality, because the trade mark or the brand carries with it a stamp of quality, a stamp of uniqueness or liking and preference.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: So there is a promise of what the consumer can expect.

DON McROBERT: There is a promise as well. It’s very useful from a consumer’s point of view to be able to be able to study the newspapers, television ads to see what’s new on the market - what new products, what new names - let’s get with it…

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: Now if you think about South Africa we hear a lot about the government making a lot of claims about us moving towards the “knowledge economy”. We’ve got a long legacy of dependence on resources - mining and minerals and so on - but in the knowledge economy what is the role of intellectual property?

DON McROBERT: The role of intellectual property in a knowledge economy is going to grow - for example people will have new ideas, they need to protect those ideas. I want to emphasise for your viewers they need to protect their intellectual property, they need to protect their patents, trademarks and your copyrights - make sure it’s protected so that in due course you can make money, and to make sure that people don’t copy it. So the knowledge industry that we are heading into requires more and more protection, more and more investigation into protection that we need - do we need to protect copyright in computer programs, computer systems, do we need to have patents in respect of computer programs and systems for certain practical applications? Do we need to protect the brand? That’s usually the biggest marketing tool. Yes. So it’s growing.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: For example if you can maybe give us one or two case studies from your coffee table book just to make it tangible - to wrap up today what kind of practical applications of intellectual property law have you seen in South Africa in the last few years, something that stands out from your experiences?

DON McROBERT: In the first instance we are seeing that people who guard their intellectual property carefully are able to stop the thieves, and I am thinking of counterfeit goods. With 2010 coming up we are seeing a growing roll-out of more and more counterfeit goods coming into this country. If you’ve protected yourself carefully - your intellectual property, your brand, your copyright - you can stop that. That’s one of the greater developments of late. Secondly, we are seeing a roll-out in the IT world - we are seeing more and more people involved in intellectual property dealing with information technology, creating systems, creating websites, domain names - all of these are playing a much bigger role in our work. Particularly in industry we are all becoming electronically linked - electronic send-outs, electronic messages, electronic purchasing - it’s all happening.

STEPHAN LAMPRECHT: Looking at it from a trademark view I’m always fascinated by trademarks in the sense that traditionally we thought about intellectual property from a patent point of view - but if you think about the roll-out of licensing programmes for the Soccer World Cup 2010 and so forth is it something that ordinary South Africans can get into? Is it an opportunity for us to also put our brands on the market?

DON McROBERT: I think for 2010 it’s a bit of both - if we can become an approved licensee of the approved Fifa licence products or the LOC products fantastic. It also gives us an opportunity to say here is going to be a wonderful economic explosion to match the Soccer that’s going to be played - sure we could come up with new ideas, new concepts, maybe new umbrellas for people to take to the parks - maybe new things for us to use as spectators or viewers of the wonderful game that’s going to evolve.