Derek has intellectual property litigation experience extending over some 38 years in trade mark, copyright and related unlawful competition issues. Over the past 20 years he has carried out IP valuations (and valuations of IP related implementation systems and support intangibles) in a wide variety of technologies and commercial sectors, for various local and multinational companies and for due diligence and price determination purposes.

Derek has also negotiated, from time to time, DTI and Exchange Control approval of licence fee royalties payable to foreign intellectual property rights holders in respect of a wide range of product categories – ranging from lingerie and agricultural equipment to blood plasma production processes.

Regularly published in local and international journals, Derek also co-authored a book on the use of intellectual property entitled “Strategy in the use of Intellectual Property”. He has recently given presentations arising from his study of the impact on transfer pricing criteria, of the controversial 10-year dispute (and the magnitude of its publicized resolution) between GSK and the US Internal Revenue Service, wherein the latter had challenged the quantum of the royalty rate paid by the former’s US licensee and distributor paid to GSK in respect of certain pharmaceutical patents, reducing allowance of these royalties on the grounds that the licensee’s marketing intangibles, when using the patented pharmaceuticals, had not been taken into adequate account. The presentations were made to interested Financial Manager and Intellectual Property professionals on how this US Internal Revenue Service approach to IP had been incorporated in the principles of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines, which the SA fiscus has adopted.