On Wednesday November 18, 2008 the Right Honourable Governor General of Canada Michaëlle Jean delivered the Government’s Speech from the Throne, and so dawned Canada’s 40th session of Parliament. The speech outlined the Conservative government’s goals for its term in power under the shadow of the current economic storm looming over the world. Though much […]
In Argentina, Google and Yahoo! have blocked the results of several searches on famous people, in response to an injunction from an Argentinean judge. Several lawsuits from athletes, entertainers, and political figures have led to a judicial order to block defamatory and pornographic search results. While the order did not target all search results on […]
On Nov. 7, the Federal Court of Appeal released their decision in eBay v. Minister of National Revenue, 2008 FCA 348. This case involved the appeal of an ex parte order of the Federal Court under s. 231.2 of the Income Tax Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp.) to produce information identifying “PowerSellers” in […]
Over the past decade, China, a developing country with a population of 1.3 billion, has nurtured a booming economy, growing at an exponential rate. All of this has not been without a heavy cost however; China’s industrial activity has contributed immensely to the world’s total emissions of greenhouse gases. It has been projected that China […]
In my last privacy post I identified certain cloud-computing privacy issues that may be regulated by the free-market. This post will outline a risk-based approach to analyzing privacy issues that laws and legislation may be required to address. A risk-based analysis is beneficial in that it changes how a problem is viewed and the type of solution […]
In a unanimous decision released last Thursday (Apotex Inc. v. Sanofi‑Synthelabo Canada Inc., 2008 SCC 61), the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that selection patents are, in principle, valid under the Canadian Patent Act. In making their pronouncement, the Supreme Court polished other legal requirements for patentability along the way. The case began 6 years […]
On Friday, November 7, IP Osgoode, the Institute For Feminist Legal Studies, and Putting Theory To Practice (An International Speakers Series At Osgoode Hall Law School) held a unique event: a roundtable of numerous female leaders in the IP field discussed and reflected on the opportunities and challenges that women face in this area of […]
In a lecture delivered on November 4 to a class of Osgoode IP students, Lord Justice Jacob of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales provided an expert viewpoint of the ongoing debate revolving around the scope of patent monopolies. By way of introduction, Lord Justice Jacob pointed to two points of view that […]
The Google Books Library Project is a hugely ambitious initiative to catalogue the millions of books in the collections of several major libraries and include them into Google Book Search. Similar to a card catalog, each book profile displays basic bibliographic information about the book and often includes a few sentences to display the search […]
Trying to get from point A to B can be frustrating, particularly when stuck in gridlock. A situation Michael Heller likens to the American (and by default, the Canadian) patent system. Heller argues in his article titled “Where are the Cures” [1], that the current patent laws hinder researchers’ abilities to develop medical cures. The […]