On June 1st the Supreme Court of the United States granted a petition to hear the case of Bilski v. Doll. At the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Bilski patent for a method of hedging risk in commodities trading was rejected, affirming the decision of the USPTO. The majority of the court moved away from the […]
In a recently released decision by the Canada Patent Appeal Board and Commissioner of Patents, an application by Amazon.com for its one-click ordering system was rejected. The application contained 75 claims and was a response to the Examiner’s report from 2002, where claims 44 to 50 were directed to a physical object and the rest were […]
On April 24th the Minister of Industry, Tony Clement, tabled a government bill with the aims of protecting consumers and businesses from dangerous forms of spam and regulating activities that are believed to discourage the use of electronic means of carrying out commercial activities. Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, contains provisions that prohibit […]
Court decisions relating to privacy matters have been in the news quite a bit recently. On April 9th, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage that has been left close to the edge of one’s property line. The case, R. v. Patrick, was unanimous at 7-0, […]
Recent cases in the U.S. have spotlighted the growing concern over the ease with which technology can be improperly used by jurors and the impact this has on the fairness of trials. Specifically, the use of cell phones and PDA’s to disseminate confidential information, and even the use of search engines and online databases to […]
On March 23, the Toronto Intellectual Property Group and IP Osgoode hosted Mario Bouchard, General Counsel for the Copyright Board of Canada, as a guest speaker at a dinner event in downtown Toronto. Mr. Bouchard focused his discussion on four issues: the role of the Board, copyright fragments, factors causing the Board’s increased workload, and […]
Two recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice judgments have allowed for law enforcement agencies to obtain subscriber information from internet service providers without a warrant. In both cases police officers used IP addresses of suspected child pornography carriers, which they had obtained themselves, to get corresponding names and addresses. This has alarmed privacy advocates, and […]
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission began hearings on February 17th in Gatineau to gain a better understanding of the “New Media” environment, to determine whether there should be some sort of regulation of online media. Though there are currently Canadian content requirements for broadcasters of traditional media, it is unlikely that the CRTC will […]
A few weeks ago, the Honourable Paul Michel sat down for an interview with Professor Doug Lichtman from UCLA School of Law. Judge Michel is the current Chief Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and in that capacity he has much experience dealing with patent litigation cases. Much […]
The balance between private and public interests is usually the centre of most intellectual property policy debates, but this can be said to be especially significant with medical research performed by publicly funded institutions. In a nation such as ours where the health of our citizens is a responsibility of the government, public funds invested […]