Giuseppina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, the Founder and Director of the IP Intensive Program, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. 2012 was an action-packed year in the world of intellectual property law. There were flurries of reports, decisions, and new legislation that confronted many core principles of […]
On the afternoon of November 29th 2012 IP Osgoode was pleased to host Justice Roger T. Hughes of the Federal Court of Canada as he shared his experiences with us in a lecture entitled “Advocacy Skills and IP: Observations from the Bench”.
Put this in your pipe and smoke it: The High Court of Australia recently ruled that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act withstands constitutional scrutiny, in JT International SA v Commonwealth of Australia. Retailers and smokers will thus soon find themselves scrutinizing things as well, in order to distinguish between identical cigarette packages stripped of all branding and trade-marks.
Hostess, the brilliant minds behind the TwinkieTM, filed for a motion to wind down business operations as the result of being unable to reach an agreement with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). Though the company itself suffered from an inflated cost structure, their trade-marks, which include TwinkieTM, Ding DongsTM and WonderTM (bread), still […]
The commitment to culture by our Francophone neighbours in Quebec has put their provincial government in the center of a legal battle with 6 major retailers.
On October 24, 2012, a California Court of Appeal released its decision on Winchester Mystery House LLC v Global Asylum Inc, 2012 WL 5243809 (Cal App 6 Dist). The result may be frightful for trade-mark holders in the United States.
Lately, it seems as if every IP law and tech blog one reads has something new to report on one of the countless lawsuits Apple is engaged in around the world. This week was no exception – the biggest splash that Apple made in the news circuit this time around was that Apple had come […]
One of the primary discussion topics at ICANN 45 in Toronto concerned the implementation of new gTLDs and the effects the new processes would have on the rights holders of various trade-marks.
Turns out the internet isn’t all about porn. Just kidding, it mostly is. But underneath the debate sparked by the .XXX domain question at last week’s international website regulatory conference are a series of fundamental issues about internet freedom of expression, the process for determining what new URLs will be on offer, the tension between […]
The re-posting of this analysis is part of a collaboration with Ashlee Froese. It appears that fashion’s most infamous case has finally come to a close. Both parties seemingly came away from the Appeal decision satisfied: Christian Louboutin’s trade-mark registration remained valid and exclusivity was maintained with respect to red soles with contrasting shoes; Yves Saint Laurent was […]