OUR EXPERIENCE
- Advising a South African university on the application of POPI to its institution, and assisting it with implementing a POPI policy, updating its existing policies to bring them in line with POPI requirements, registering its information officers and training its information officers and employees on compliance with POPI.
- Advising a large mining house with regards to its sponsorship of the reconstruction and rebranding of a bridge belonging to a tertiary institution, and drafting the relevant agreements.
- A South African company sought to dispose of its rights in intellectual property to a Singaporean entity. We were required to provide an opinion and comments on, amongst others, the IP considerations that are relevant to the proposed transaction, including considering the chain of ownership when transferring the IP, the application of exchange control regulations to the transaction and the pricing of the IP to be assigned.
- Advising a US innovative rail products and services company regarding a) its intragroup licence agreement with its South African subsidiary, b) its collaboration agreement with its South African subsidiary, c) its application to the Department of Trade and Industry for approval of remittance of royalties under the intragroup licence agreement, d) applications to the South African Reserve Bank (or its authorised dealers) for approval of licence and assignment of IP provisions in design, prototype manufacturing, testing and homologation or railrunner products agreements.
- Advising the purchaser on all IP matters relating to a transaction in which it sought to acquire shares of a local South African company. The advice included conducting an IP due diligence investigation, which highlighted a number of gaps and risks in the IP owned by the seller; advising the purchaser on the best manner in which these risks could be addressed, taking into consideration the strategic objectives of the transaction. Given that the seller had IP assets in several countries across the continent the advice given required application of our knowledge of IP laws in various jurisdictions, thus adding value in this manner. This deal was a runner-up Dealmakers 2019 deal of the year matter.
- We are responsible for the management a beverage manufacturing company’s trade mark portfolio. This includes providing strategic advice on the protection, maintenance and enforcement of this client’s important trade mark assets as well as conducting portfolio audits, advising on the strategic management of trade marks, conducting clearance searches, advising on inherent registrability, as well as classification, filing and prosecuting trade mark applications and enforcing the client’s trade marks. We have also assisted this client in negotiating an amicable settlement with a third party that had threatened trade mark infringement proceedings against the client.
- We advised a South African software development company in a copyright infringement matter, relating to the development and ownership of copyright in a cattle management computer software program. Our advice included attending to the matter from inception to finalisation, including appearing on behalf of the client before the Supreme Court of Appeal and ultimately ensuring that, once judgment was handed down in favour of the client, the costs awarded to the client were appropriately taxed and paid to the client.