Juli Hopf | Partner | Spoor & Fisher | mail me |
Pieter Delport | Associate| Spoor & Fisher | mail me |
It was the Roman Statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero who first used the phrase: Silent enim lēgēs inter arma – In times of war, the law falls silent. These words may still ring true today as the world witnesses the horrifying effects of wars in our time, and the appropriation of property that accompanies them.
The impact of war can extend to intellectual property, as in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where the IP rights of global brands are becoming casualties of the conflict.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sanctions have been imposed and many major corporations and some of the world’s top brands have pulled out of Russia. These include fossil fuel companies (BP), vehicle manufacturers (Boeing, Airbus, Ford Motor Company, Toyota, Volkswagen) consumer goods companies (Disney, Adidas, Carlsberg, H&M) food and beverage brands (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Starbucks) and many other global entities such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Visa Mastercard, Netflix, Apple, Google, Meta (Facebook) and TikTok.
Russian decree
As tensions between the Western World and Russia escalated, the Russian Government, in March 2022, issued a decree implementing drastic changes to the compensation structure for the use of patented inventions.
According to the decree…
The full article is reserved for our subscribers!
Read the full article by Juli Hopf, Partner and Pieter Delport, Associate, Spoor & Fisher, as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the June/July 2022 edition of BusinessBrief.
admin@bbrief.co.za | +27 (0)11 788 0880 |
