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Counterfeit Goods Act, 1997 (Act No. 37 of 1997)

20. Orders permissible following conviction of person of offence contemplated in section 2(2)

 

(1) Subject to section 10, the court having convicted a person of an offence contemplated in section 2(2) may declare the counterfeit goods in question to be forfeited to the State or order that those goods and their packaging, and, where applicable, any tools that were used by or on behalf of the convicted person for the manufacturing, production or making of those or any other counterfeit goods or for the unlawful application to goods of the subject matter of any intellectual property right, be destroyed.

 

(2) Any person who submits any counterfeit goods purchased by him or her (hereafter called the aggrieved person), to an inspector, together with proof of the price that was paid for those goods, will be entitled to receive payment of a sum of money equivalent to three times the amount of that price, in the following circumstances:
(a) The person who had sold those counterfeit goods must have been convicted of an offence referred to in section 2(2) founded on the sale of those goods. Alternatively, an order, against the seller, must have been made in terms of section 10(1)(a) directing that those goods be delivered up to the owner of the intellectual property right, the subject matter of which was unlawfully applied to those goods, or up to a complainant deriving his or her title from that owner.
(b) The aggrieved person must have co-operated fully in the prosecution of the seller for that offence.
(c) When the court having so convicted the seller of those goods or having made an order in terms of section 10(1)(a), has also issued an order awarding that sum of money to the aggrieved person and directing the seller to pay that award. However, the court must make the latter order if satisfied that the requirements of paragraphs (a) and (b) have been met.

 

(3) The provisions of subsection (2) will apply and be applied, mutatis mutandis, in relation to and for the benefit of any person who, otherwise than by way of a transaction of purchase and sale, has acquired, in consideration for value given by him or her, goods that are counterfeit goods.