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ARTICLE · 10 JUNE 2015

Software Licences - Be Careful!

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The Supreme Court of Appeal recently handed down judgment in the case of Attachmate Corporation v Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs (20 May 2015).

South AfricaIntellectual Property
Rachel Sikwane
Rachel Sikwane
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The Supreme Court of Appeal recently handed down judgment in the case of Attachmate Corporation v Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs (20 May 2015). There are lessons to be learned for all those who are involved in the licensing of computer software.

The facts were that Attachmate, a US company, had signed a software licence agreement authorising the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs (DWE) to use certain software, with the idea being that DWE's employees would be able to access, via their own computers, data stored at the mainframe computer housed at the State Information Technology Agency (Sita). There was a separate maintenance agreement in terms of which Attachmate was obliged to support the software.

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