Lorraine Fleck is a Toronto, Ontario lawyer and trade-mark agent who practices advertising and marketing, contest, copyright, packaging and labeling, privacy and trade-mark law. Interbrand has released its report of the 100 Best Global Brands 2009. The ranking is based on the following criteria: Publicly available financial data. This means that brands owned by privately […]
Billy Barnes is a JD candidate at the University of Toronto. Budweiser has begun selling beer cans in the colours of local college football teams in some markets in the US. For example, in parts of Michigan they are selling a maize (pale yellow) and blue “fan can” that matches the colours of Michigan State University. […]
Ashlee Froese is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and currently practices intellectual property at the law firm of Keyser Mason Ball LLP. After a prolonged 8-year battle, the highest court in Malaysia has unanimously confirmed that McDonald’s does not have a monopoly over the “MC” prefix in association with all restaurant operations. Lets “Relish” in the […]
Beer companies are notorious for their litigious ways and this summer has seen a continuation in the legal drama. In May 2009, beer giant Labatt Brewing Co. Ltd. launched a lawsuit against the Waterloo-based Brick Brewing Co. Ltd., regarding the similarity of the Brava and Red Baron bottles. Labatt, who acquired Brava in 2007 when […]
This summer I had the opportunity to travel to Munich, Germany where I attended summer courses in Copyright and Patent law. I attended this program though the George Washington University Law School and the courses were held at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law. What I learned in the classroom […]
Recently the Federal Court of Australia introduced a fast track IP litigation procedure which makes copyright and trademark litigation faster and more cost effective. Studying the Australian fast track procedure is fruitful because Canada also suffers from expensive and time consuming IP litigation and because similarities between the two legal systems means that following Australian […]
Oh Wal-Mart. I can’t live with you and I can’t live without you. You are that big bad department store having driven one too many mom and pop shops out of business. Yet you are my wallet’s saviour. It’s a love-hate relationship. I would not be surprised if the United Food and Commercial Workers Union […]
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. But, do other nations stand on guard for Canada? When it comes to protecting official Canadian marks, such as the Canadian maple leaf, apparently Paris Convention Union nation courts are willing to stand up for Canada’s interests. A recent decision by the European Court of Justice has […]
Thanks to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, it is now clear that “hotel” is a generic word. Hotels.com attempted to register the mark for the services of “providing information for others about temporary lodging; travel agency services, namely, making reservations and bookings for temporary lodging for others by means of telephone […]
Does free speech overrule a trademark owner’s interest in a domain name? According to Sutherland Institute v. Continuative LLC, a recent case by a WIPO domain dispute arbitration panel, the answer could be yes. Maybe. The case is interesting for two reasons: its discussion of free speech protection and domain names, and the deference of […]