Archive for March, 2008
Monday, March 31st, 2008
During Professor Bruce Ziff’s discussion on Private Property, he referred to Garrett Hardin’s theory on the Tragedy of the Commons. The common hypothetical relates to the relationship of farmers overgrazing on common land. Since ...
Posted in Patents, IP | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is a comprehensive multilateral agreement setting minimum uniform standards of IP protection and enforcement in all WTO Member States.[1] Its provisions require a substantive degree of IP protection for all members, including a twenty year term of protection[2] that confers the exclusive ...
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Recently, I received a letter from my internet service provider, Rogers Communications, informing me that my internet service will be changing. Not only will I have a cap on the amount of information I can download and upload a month, I will also be inflicted with caps on ...
Posted in Telecommunications | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Let’s say I want to sublet my on-campus room for the summer. I’m paying $1,000/month. Because staying on campus is extremely convenient for whatever reason, but it is difficult to find a place, someone proposed me $1,200/month for the sublet, while others proposed less than $1,000/month. Which offer should I ...
Posted in Commercialization, IP | No Comments »
Monday, March 31st, 2008
Once again on February 11th 2008, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) released its annual recommendations which it submits to the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The name taken by the IIPA may be misleading, as it can hardly be considered “international” in scope. The IIPA is essentially a ...
Posted in IP, Copyright | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 28th, 2008
Under Canadian patent law, the scope of patentable subject matter is still expanding. But under U.S. patent law, “anything under the sun made by man” is patentable. This has come to include patents for computer software.
Software patents raise a debate over which algorithms are novel, and which are non-obvious. Some ...
Posted in Commercialization, Originality, Technology, Patentability, IP, Patents, Copyright | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
The notion of originality in copyright seems to reinforce an outdated assumption of author as a singular creator. Today, there are a plethora of cases that defy this notion. Most notably is act of collaboration and collective production. The notion of collective production is clearly illustrated in ...
Posted in Originality, Copyright, General | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 24th, 2008
In its Strategic Plan published in 2006, Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation called for the generation of an “innovation culture” in Ontario with one goal of increasing the commercialization of research taking place at universities. I could not help but think of my own experience as a grad ...
Posted in Commercialization, Tech Transfer | 1 Comment »
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
The proposition that consumers are confused by the use of geographical indicators (GIs) by producers other than those from the specified geographic region is arguably a weak one. Evidence that GIs have become generic terms in many countries bolsters this argument because consumers generally do not consider generic marks to ...
Posted in Trademarks, IP Course Topic, IP | 1 Comment »
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
Open Access, Competition, and Spectrum Auctions
This past week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US announced the winners of their 700Mhz spectrum auction, with Verizon and AT&T being the big winners. In bidding 19.6 billion dollars in the process, the winners secured rights to broadcast on a very ...
Posted in Telecommunications, Technology | No Comments »
