Noseweek (news you are not supposed to know)has a following thanks to its sensational exposes. The IP industry in RSA has found itself on its content page more often than it would probably like and consequently Noseweek is received with mixed feelings by practitioners. My own view is that Noseweek is quite positive for the IP industry. Nonetheless, it can be and often is, a dubious honour to mentioned within its pages simply because of the nature of the publication. This is what happened to Dr Wim Alberts, a respected IP commentator in South Africa, who suffered a few hours of anguish yesterday when he was told by a colleague that he had been quoted in an article provocatively entitled "Driven to Drink". You can locate the article here (if you subscribe) and Afro-IP will publish the article next month when it is released for free. Frustrating I know - it cost Dr Alberts a few hours and R30 (the cost of the article) to find out that The Nose had actually picked Fleurette Coetzee (CIPRO's Senior Manager of Trade Marks) for a rollover this time, while the Doc's reputation remained safely intact, if not enhanced.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Who did The Nose pick in May?
Darren Olivier
2 comments
Write commentsirony, irony irony... won't Afro-IP be violating Noseweek's IP rights if it publishes the article without its permission? Or are we following different laws here? The fact that the article would be available free online doesn't give you or anyone permission to re-publish it without the owner's permission. Or is Afro-IP just seeking undue publicity?
ReplyHi Manecounsel, by "publish" Afro-IP means using a hyperlink to Noseweek's page where they have chosen to publish the article for free. We will be facilitating access to the copyrighted material and providing commentary. Apologies for not making that clear and thanks for the comment.
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