A judgement in the Court of Appeal that Century City should be scrapped because it is no longer a brand name, also holds implications for other large, well-known property developments.

Judge Louis Harms, deputy president of the Court of Appeal, recently ordered that the brand name Century City be scrapped due to it becoming a geographical name, and no longer being a brand name.

Suzaan Laing, a partner at the legal firm Adams & Adams, who represented the applicants in the court of appeal, said the judgement is important due to the implication for other big developments. She says it is a watershed judgement as it is the first judgement in the court of appeal on this issue.

"With these kinds of developments the developers want exclusive rights on the name, but as the developments become more famous, they become geographical names and are no longer brand names."

Laing said it means the businesses located in Century City that refer to this place in their brand names, are able to do it now.

The Century City brand name was registered in 1997.

The brand name first belonged to the development firm Monex, which initially started developing the Century City development. From the start, the idea was to develop it into a project with shopping centres, offices, apartments and houses.

The brand name was later transferred to the Rabie Property Group, who in turn transferred it to the non-profit company Century City Property Owners' Association. The latter collects the levies and maintains the development.

Laing says, a couple of years ago, the association started taking aggressive action against businesses that use "Century City" in their brand names and sent letters of demand to them. There were already more than 30 businesses back then that used the words "Century City" in their name.

"The association chose one of the smaller players in the industry to make an example of."

Her client is Century City Apartments Property Services, a firm started by Patrick and Zeena Murphy to let luxury properties in Century City.

The case initially started in the Cape High Court as a copyright infringement case against her clients.

Laing and her clients later launched a counteraction against the cancellation of the brand name on the ground that it no longer fulfils the function of a brand name, and has now become a place name.

They lost the case in the High Court, but got leave to appeal.

Harms found that Century City is no longer a brand name, but is indeed a place that serves in the trade to indicate the geographical origination of the services offered by broad range of people. – Nellie Brand-Jonker, Sake24

Readers' Comments Have a comment about this article? Email us now.

We were also victims of the bullying that took place as a small start up company we were threatened by the CCPOA to not use "Century City Specialists" on our car advertising.

Due to financial restraints we change our advert.

We again just recently got a lawyers letter demanding we remove "Century City Living" from our website and our website address www.centurycityliving.co.za to be discontinued.

I am please to see that the Murphy's have had the tenacity and ability to fight these unscrupulous bullies and win.

Hooray for the small guy and thank you to Adams and Adams. - Gordon Foulis

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