“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 […]
What started in early 2007 as just another simmering lawsuit against YouTube boiled over halfway through the summer into a full-blown battle over Internet privacy. While it’s still unclear who’s on which side, it’s fairly obvious that in the end, users are the ones losing out. And for that, we have Google to thank. In […]
“Business method” (BM) is a generic term that has been used by many to describe various types of process claims.[1] Business method patents are patents that aim to secure the IP rights associated with a particular method of facilitating business. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office states that business method patents are de facto not patentable.[2] […]
Shakespeare was thinking about roses, but his question is of contemporary relevance: is our understanding of a thing conditioned exclusively by its name, or does it encompass its function and attributes as well? Jim Brown would argue that function prevails over form. A retired NFL player, Brown is suing EA and Sony for the unauthorized […]
Is online music downloading to the new millennium what marijuana was to the 1960s? It seems like nearly everyone is doing it and most have some way of legitimizing it. However, unlike marijuana, Canadian law has been seemingly unclear on the legality of peer-to-peer file sharing – until now. In July of this year, Justice […]
In a column dated April 29, 2008,[1] Law professor Michael Geist called a draft version of CIRA’s WHOIS policy “a model for domain name registries around the world.”[2] When the policy was finally introduced in July, Professor Geist’s position changed dramatically; WHOIS was now “a significant setback.”[3] Why the stunning volte-face? First, some background. […]
A recent report in the Globe and Mail revealed that a potentially precedent-setting case of a Facebook impersonator, could lead to a slew of charges against “pranksters” on popular social-networking sites. The accused, a Manitoba high school student, was charged with the rare offence of personation after police had decided that the fake profile he […]
Court and Tribunal decisions, being a work under the direction or control of Her Majesty, fall under the Crown Copyright.[1] Because of the importance in a democratic society to provide unimpeded access to the law, the federal government has officially made an exception to the exclusive copyright possessed by the government for decisions and the […]
It is said that a problem shared is a problem halved. Is it possible that innovation shared could mean innovation doubled? If one looks to economic theory to justify IP, the underlying purpose of IP appears to be the promotion of advancements in science and useful arts- by protecting the creator’s rights the law provides […]
In re Bilski, the courts must re-interpret 35 U.S.C. § 101, which states that a process can be patented. In State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group, the court decided that business methods were patentable as long as the process produced a “useful, concrete, and tangible result” [1]. In re Comiskey, the courts put an […]