American Airlines drops trademark lawsuit against Google

When American Airlines filed a lawsuit last year against Google claiming trademark infringement, many people hoped that this case would clarify the otherwise confusing jurisprudence surrounding the issue- whether or not Google allowing advertisers to purchase trademarks as keywords for advertising- is trademark infringement. However, in July the companies stated in identical emails, that they […]

Economic Benefits Lie at the Heart of Patent Protection, Not Altruism

The ideas that an inventor’s time and investments should be protected and new inventions encouraged through the granting of patents, underlie some of the justifications of our current patent system.  Theorists such as Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham claim that patents are necessary to encourage invention at no social cost (1).  Professor Heller of Columbia Law […]

Only the Devil wears Prada: How “piracy” democratizes fashion for the rest of us

In fashion, the thin line between inspiration and “piracy” becomes increasingly blurred as fashion executives, designers, editors, and lawyers struggle to define what constitutes unethical imitation.  Daniel Drapeau, a lawyer representing high-profile clients, criticizes the lack of legal protection in Canada by questioning whether we should be encouraging “cheap chic merchants”.  Franco Rocchi of Le Chateau, […]

Top U.S. court scales back patent royalties

A recent landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court in Quanta v. LG Electronics has effectively restricted patent-holders’ ability to claim infringement for subsequent uses of licensed products. This is the latest step by the top American court to circumscribe the scope of entitlements of patent-holders by limiting the ability of companies to collect […]

NZ judge bans Net naming of defendants

In August 2008, New Zealand judge, Justice David Harvey, made a ruling banning the publication of the names of two men who were charged with murder, on news websites. His main concern was the ability of jurors to Google the names of defendants before trials, and easily access information on their past criminal history. He […]

Moral Rights and Open-Source

In a judgment pronounced in early August, which will encourage the open-source movement (Jacobsen v. Katzer, available at http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf), a US Court of Appeals (Federal Circuit) held that a copyright holder can control the future distribution and modification of her work (through, for instance, means such as open-source licenses) even if she has dedicated the […]

Liberal Party of Canada and Green Shift Inc.: Principles Take a Back Seat to the Almighty Dollar

Update July 7, 2009: Barry Stork's post "Liberal Party of Canada and Green Shift Inc.: Principles Take a Back Seat to the Almighty Dollar" won the Gowlings LLP Best Blog in IP Law and Technology Prize Fall 2008 in Professor D'Agostino's IP class Even before Parliament’s dissolution on September 7, 2008, Jennifer Wright took issue […]

Shortcomings of Bill C-61 As Clear as A Bell

Bill C-61 has been met with much criticism from IP experts and users alike. Though C-61 died on account of the federal election, debating its merits is not redundant as we may see its return.  As I see it, much of what is wrong with the Bill can be seen in the following example of […]

Will Wordscraper Escape Claims of Infringement?

"Scrabulous" a game similar to the board game Scrabble was launched online, and made available to Facebook users as an add-on game, by its creators the Agarwalla's in 2006.  By all accounts Scrabulous was almost identical to Scrabble in appearance (same colour of board), rules and name.  In 2008, Hasbro, who own the intellectual property […]

“Green Shift”: A source of marketplace confusion?

“Green Shift” has become a familiar term in the Canadian media over the past few months. Plugging these words into Google draws up numerous hits, with the leading ones referring to the Liberal Party’s proposed plan to fight climate change. But long before Stéphane Dion and his colleagues decided to use this phrase to brand […]