Christopher Hansen, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, has become involved in a patent case for an “abstract idea”. The patent in dispute belongs to Bernard L. Bilski: “In 2006, Bilski sought a patent for his idea that the weather risk involved in buying and selling commodities could be minimized if sellers had […]
In 1999, between 1.3 and 2.1 billion people did not have access to essential medicines (around 30% of the world’s population), with most of these people being concentrated in Africa and India.[1] In May 2004, after pressure from Canadian civil society groups and Stephen Lewis (the UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa), and in […]
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 resources are finite, the over-exploitation of land by some members of the community results in a consequential detriment to all. Thus, […]
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 algorithms may arguably have […]
I recently attended a lecture by professor Bruce Ziff, of the University of Alberta Law School, where he described what he termed as his only original academic idea. He posited that the reason we as a society are so restrictive about property rights is because it is basically impossible to extinguish property rights that have […]
IBM is going to offer free programs to compete with Microsoft’s Office programs. A new attempt for some good old Microsoft-bashing, IBM failed in 1990 to compete head-on with its OS/2 system, and an ambitious plan to challenge one of the most lucrative businesses for Microsoft. The more important question here is, not if IBM […]
In June 2007, the BBC reported, that scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute had applied to patent the method they plan to use to create their synthetic organism. According to the article, the Institute is claiming exclusive ownership of a set of 381 essential genes believed necessary to keep an organism alive and the […]
In March 2007, the district court in Alexandria, Virginia held that Vonage, a company which uses voice over IP technology, had infringed claims of three patents owned by Verizon Communications, and that those patents were not invalid as obvious. The judgement awarded $58,000,000 in damages and a royalty of 5.5% on any future infringing sales […]
Vonage has been the target of substantial patent infringement litigation in recent months. One of their ongoing disputes has been with Verizon, a competitor in the internet phone business. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released its decision in Vonage’s appeal. At first glance, it may appear Vonage was the more […]
Thailand is at war, with battles taking place on several fronts. Over 600,000 people in Thailand are infected with HIV and the government is fighting the epidemic by administering HIV treatment and medication through its universal healthcare system. But HIV drugs are costly. In order to provide its people with the necessary medication, Thailand has […]