Professor Abraham Drassinower (University of Toronto) has a new paper available on SSRN, “Canadian Originality: Remarks on a Judgment in Search of an Author“. Professor Drassinower describes his paper below. The standard of originality in Canadian copyright law has recently undergone significant transformation. Traditionally a jurisdiction that, in the eyes of many, had adopted a […]
Grey market goods are legally-produced goods obtained in a foreign country which are imported into a domestic market via an unauthorized distribution channel. These parallel-import goods are typically obtained in a country where the cost of such goods are low enough so that the importer can sell them at a price lower than the domestic […]
The global economic downturn continues to make its impact. A few months ago, I mentioned the possibility that patents might be used to leverage credit, in the face of cautious lenders. Bloomberg.com is reporting that firms might be more desperate: “Small-cap technology companies from Silicon Valley to Israel, struggling to raise enough money to survive […]
The balance between private and public interests is usually the centre of most intellectual property policy debates, but this can be said to be especially significant with medical research performed by publicly funded institutions. In a nation such as ours where the health of our citizens is a responsibility of the government, public funds invested […]
Sanjukta Tole is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and practiced with the IP Group of a large Vancouver law firm. In 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the case of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, Maison Fondee en 1772 v. Boutiques Cliquot Ltee, 2006 SCC 23 (“Veuve Clicquot”), in which the maker of the […]
For the past year and a half, one political figure has evoked much publicity around the world that very few celebrities or politicians have enjoyed during their whole life. This political figure is the newly elected U.S. president, Barack Obama. The Obama craze has resulted in, what Megan Boler calls, a ‘merchandising mayhem’. In the U.S., […]
Sara Grimes is a PhD Candidate with the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Digital games have evolved considerably in recent years, but from an IP perspective, one of the most interesting and significant shifts has been the introduction of user-generated content (UGC) into corporately-owned digital games and virtual worlds. Early evidence of the […]
In 2005, Apple publicly announced their transition from the IBM/Motorola PowerPC chipset to the Intel x86 chipset. In addition to the speed improvements, and efficiency gains (higher performance per watt) with the Intel processors, the transition also gave Mac users greater flexibility in the operating systems and programs that could be run without an x86 […]
Do you remember the last time you made an online purchase from Amazon or the Apple Store? When you entered in all your personal information, do you remember reading Amazon or Apple’s privacy notices? If you clicked on it, did you read through the entire thing? It is quite likely that your answer would be […]
A six year quest of the Toronto Star has been finally put to rest by an Ontario Court of Appeal decision favouring a ‘freedom of information’ request filed by the Star. The landmark decision held that municipal government institutions, such as the Toronto Police Services Board (the “Board”), are required to produce electronically stored information that the public […]