ABSTRACT
The third part of this book focuses on protection for image for traders, and later even for individuals. It is as important to intellectual property right owners to exploit their products without facing unfair market practices, as it is to have protection for the product itself. Intellectual property protection through registered trade marks and the action for passing off differs from patent, copyright and design protection. They are not tied to products themselves, but instead focus on a producer’s reputation and goodwill as the source of goods or services, and as the providers of their quality. For this reason, the provision for registration of trade marks to bolster commercial reputation or image is treated as an important part of intellectual property law. However, equally significant protection is afforded through the common law by the tort (delict) of passing off:
Nobody has any right to represent his goods as the goods of somebody else.1
