The dispute between Microsoft Corporation and the defendants, PC Village Markham, PC Village Downtown – two software retailers in the Greater Toronto Area – and two of their employees, Syed Aziz and Johnson Ye, arose because the defendants were selling counterfeit Microsoft software, “software that was neither manufactured by Microsoft nor by any of its […]
It is no secret that counterfeit goods have been sold over the internet for years. Your relation to someone who has purchased some form of counterfeited good over the internet most probably follows the six degrees of separation rule. As a prominent source of the sale of counterfeit goods, U.S.-based eBay has been sued by […]
When I heard about Android Data, the first thing that came to my mind was the popular Star Trek android (robot) named Data. However, this case has nothing to do with Star Trek; rather it is about Erich Specht, founder of Android Dungeon Corporation, who obtained a trademark for “Android Data”. On April 28th, Erich […]
Twitter is a new Internet social networking phenomenon. It is a “service for friends, family, and co-workers, to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” I have not yet jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon, but perhaps I should. At the very least, I […]
On May 4th, the Ontario Bar Association presented “Intellectual Property Issues in a Non-IP Context”. This conference brought together professionals from several practice areas, such as criminal law, insurance law and employment law. The focus of the conference was to draw attention to the variety of IP issues that exist within many areas of the […]
On April 17th, Taser International Inc. filed a 102-page complaint in the U.S. District Court (District of Arizona) against Linden Research Inc., creators of the wildly popular online video game Second Life. Taser (who manufactures the stun gun of the same name) alleges that Linden allowed its users to infringe on its trademark by creating […]
Ashlee Froese is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and currently practices intellectual property at the law firm of Keyser Mason Ball LLP. What are Geographical Indications in Canada? Geographical Indications (“GIs”) are protected indicia that specifically relate to wines and spirits under the Canadian Trade-marks Act (“the Act”). A GI identifies the “quality, reputation or other […]
Ashlee Froese is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and currently practices intellectual property at the law firm of Keyser Mason Ball LLP. In today’s tough economic times, downsizing and cutting costs has become the global universal mantra. But is this strategy necessarily applicable to intellectual property? Given that trade-mark rights can exist in perpetuity, their value […]
A recent cyber-squatting dispute sheds light on the fact that although avenues for resolutions exist, cybersquatting is still a major problem plaguing internet commerce today. It all started when US media giant Viacom, decided to move material about its TV show ‘Jackass’ to the domain name ‘jackass.com’, but realized that a serial cybersquatter based in the Virgin Islands (owned […]
Ann Bartow is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. One of the cases that always troubled me when I taught Trademark Law was Qualitex v. Jacobson Products Co., in which the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that colors alone could constitute protectable trademarks. Colors could always be protected as part […]