On 15 August 2012 a young man phoned Cape Talk radio.
He wasn't happy, and he wanted the world to know about it: some
time back he'd devised what he felt was a very clever coin
counting device; he'd presented his device to a leading bank
and the bank had told him that it wasn't interested; the bank
was now using a coin counting device that was remarkably similar to
his invention; and the bank was refusing to pay him any
compensation. The bank declined to discuss the matter
on air, but an IP attorney gave his views. Something that would
have been easy to do, because every IP attorney hears this story on
a regular basis.
It's a story that requires the attorney to give the client a
crash course on IP, a kind of IP Lite. But where to
start? Well, it may surprise you to hear this, but in South
Africa copying is lawful. Yes, you can quite lawfully copy
those smart things that the others (your competitors) are
doing. Except when you're infringing rights that
