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| Full house |
Afro Corne attended a packed IP seminar at the University of Johannesburg hosted by Professor Wim Alberts earlier this month. Not only were some of the who's who of IP in South Africa present, but the speakers really put in an effort to get their points across.
It is difficult to cover all topics on IP in a single day and so time was limited for each speaker. This meant that each of them had to really focus on the points that they wished to convey which in turn meant for high level contributions. It also ensured that audience attention was maintained throughout; if there was a topic that wasn't your game then one knew that in 25 mins or so later there would be a different speaker. So, a hat tip to Prof Alberts and UJ for putting on a great event.
In an effort to share the contributions to a wider audience, Prof Alberts and this blog are reaching out to the speakers to share their slides with this community. In addition, if you have any pics to share on the event, we'll post them in Sightings here where several have been uploaded already. Checkem out.
The rhino has cajoled fellow blogger Darren Olivier to share his and Maureen Makoko's slides on their topic: Not Following European Trademark Law: Ignorance or Arrogance (click on the link to view) which took a look at TM decisions for the year since the last UJ seminar to illustrate the common mistakes in not using the structured EU approach to the most popular of trade mark tests - the"likelihood of confusion" test, and how they can be avoided.
Darren explained that "We have been approached by a number of different people for the slides and cases or for us to do a separate presentation to them. We are more than happy to do both, so its no problem sharing these slides on Afro-IP. Thank you".
The Prof wished me to convey: "I am humbled by those who attended especially as it drew an audience from academia, industry, government and the law firms. Thank you. Next year, we are going to do this again with an even broader range of topics and speakers, and it will be even better .If you have input or suggestions please send it to me and thanks once again for your support."
You can be sure that Afro-IP and this blogger will be covering it again!
