Latest News and Insights
April 20, 2026
Athlete Image Rights: Your Image May Be Worth More Than Your Playing Contract
For professional athletes starting out, contract negotiations almost always begin and end with salary. This is totally understandable, as salaries pay bills and provide security for the length of the contract. However, few young athletes understand that their most valuable asset is their ...
April 9, 2026
AI Clones and Digital Identity: A New IP Risk for Influencers and Brands
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the influencer economy and not always in predictable ways.
AI tools can now replicate a person’s face, voice, and manner of speaking with remarkable accuracy. With only seconds of source material, software can generate content that appears to show a re...
April 7, 2026
TABASCO® Meets Vodka: A Spicy Trade Dress Dispute
What do vodka and pepper sauce have in common? Surprisingly, their packaging.
In January 2026, the McIlhenny Company, a Louisiana-based family business behind the world-famous TABASCO® pepper sauce, filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court against spirit producer Stoli Group (USA) LLC, allegin...
March 27, 2026
Feeling the Music: The case that put AI music recommendations to the patent test
In February 2026, the United Kingdom Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller General. The case put AI music recommendations to the patent test, after the UK Patent Office initially rejected the patent on the basis that it was “just a com...
March 24, 2026
Gene Therapy: Lessons from REGENXBIO v Sarepta for South Africa
As gene therapy technologies continue to reshape modern medicine, patent law increasingly faces the challenge of distinguishing products of nature from genuine biological engineering. Courts are frequently required to determine whether inventions involving genetic material represent technological...
March 19, 2026
The Hidden Dangers of Counterfeit Calculators
With the new academic year underway and the annual “back‑to‑school” readiness in full swing, parents and students are prioritising essential learning tools. A recent 1Life Insurance Back to School survey highlights just how strained households are during this period: 95% of parents reported feeli...
March 9, 2026
Patriotic Marketing: From Cheers to (Legal) Tears
Excitement will abound on 11 June 2026, when South Africa takes on Mexico in the highly anticipated 2026 FIFA World Cup opener in Mexico City! This will serve as a re-match of the opening game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, as well as South Africa’s return to the World Cup stage after failing to qua...
March 4, 2026
From Miss Marple to Rachmaninoff: A Jurisdictional Mystery
I recently noticed an advertisement for a new Netflix adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery. Curious, I did a bit of reading around the production and noticed that this particular Christie novel, first published in 1929, entered the public domain in the United States in...
February 19, 2026
The Effects of G1/23 on Prior Art in a South African Context
Information that is made publicly available before a patent’s priority date forms part of the prior art. In July, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) of the European Patent Office (EPO) published its decision regarding
February 5, 2026
SARS, Influencers and the Rise of Luxury Dupes: What South Africans Need to Know
South African media have recently reported growing concern within SARS about the online promotion of so-called “luxury dupes”. Dupes are short for “duplicates” and represent products that mimic well-known luxury brands and are often promoted on TikTok, Instagram and other social platforms, but at...
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