Aletia Oberholster
Head of Brands and Intellectual Property
Barnard’s Brands and Intellectual Property team assists businesses, founders and brand owners across South Africa with protecting, managing and enforcing the intellectual property that underpins brand value and commercial growth.
The team advises on trade mark registration, brand protection, copyright, IP disputes, IP enforcement, licensing agreements and IP commercialisation, with practical support that helps clients protect what they have built and use it commercially with confidence.
Related Core Services
Tech Transfer
Commercialising innovation, collaborations, spin-outs, improvement rights
Domains and Online Identity
Confusing domains, phishing, impersonation, prevention
Start-ups and Innovation
IP hygiene, developer/contractor ownership, investor readiness
Copyright
Ownership clarity, permissions and copied content
Brand Enforcement
Infringement, counterfeits, takedowns and urgent steps
Trademarks
Registration, portfolios, objections and growth protection
Licensing and Commercialisation
Licences, assignments, deals and control
How We Work
(so you know what happens next)
- Quick discovery call
- Options + recommendation (trade-offs made clear)
- Execute with milestones
- Keep your position strong (renewals, monitoring, deal support)
If it’s urgent, we’ll tell you what to do first.
How Barnard supports brands and innovators
We don’t treat IP as a filing exercise. We treat it as a commercial asset — something to protect, defend, and use strategically.
Protect brand equity
Trade mark strategy, filing, portfolios and launch protection.
Protect creative and commercial work
Copyright ownership, permissions and enforcement when work is copied.
Commercialise IP
Licensing, assignments and agreements that preserve control.
Enforce and defend rights
Decisive action when reputation, goodwill and trust are at stake.
Support innovation
Start-up IP hygiene, investor readiness and tech transfer structures.
What it’s like to work with our IP team
Clarity before complexity
You’ll get a practical view of risk, cost and timing — in plain language.
Structured, responsive, decisive
No “desk to desk” drift. We scope, prioritise and move.
Commercial thinking throughout
We focus on outcomes: protection that holds up, and structures that make business sense.
Need a clear starting point? Ask for an IP first-look consult when you speak to the team.
Case Studies
Trusted by businesses that rely on reputation and IP
Brands and Intellectual Property
Building brand protection for growth in a regulated sector
A growing business in a regulated sector needed trademark protection that could support expansion across multiple services, not just its current offering.
Brands and Intellectual Property
Protecting a brand when an objection threatens momentum
A business faced opposition to its trademark applications, putting the continued use and registration of its brand at risk.
Brands and Intellectual Property
Aligning trade mark protection to how the business really operates
An industrial group needed trade mark protection that reflected the full reality of its operations, including manufacturing, services, logistics and innovation activity.
