Tag: ContractLaw
Patent filing rights judgment – who gets to file?
In March 2026, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) handed down a significant decision in The Regents of the University of California & Others vs Eurolab (Pty) Ltd & Others. The case turned on a deceptively simple question: who is legally entitled to apply for a patent under South African law?
The replica dispute – when a house becomes a lawsuit
When a private home becomes the centrepiece of a Bad Bunny production, the legal foundations may be just as important as the concrete ones. Eighty-four-year-old Puerto Rican homeowner Román Carrasco Delgado ("Carrasco"), who says he designed and built his distinctive salmon-coloured home with his brother, filed a lawsuit in Puerto Rico's Superior Court in September 2025 against several defendants, including Bad Bunny.
The fired and the furious – and still restrained
The Labour Appeal Court decision in Backsports (Pty) Ltd vs Motlhanke and another offers a useful reminder. Dismissal does not mark the end of an employer’s rights. This remains true where a restraint of trade was carefully agreed and clearly breached. For employers, the judgment reinforces several important lessons about enforcement, evidence and the limits of sympathy-based reasoning. In other words, it offers clarity in disputes that often resemble the fired and the furious, where emotions run high after termination.
