IP

17 Year-Old Patent Causing Problems for Podcasters

Is a podcast analogous to a cassette tape recording of a magazine article? Jim Logan of Personal Audio thinks that it is, and that it thereby infringes his patent.

Will I Am: Pharrell Williams and Will.i.am In Trade-Mark Dispute

Pharrell may currently hold the #1 and #2 spots on Billboard’s Hot 100, but in the past few weeks, he made headlines due to his ongoing trade-mark dispute with Will.i.am (coincidentally, the last band to hold both the #1 and #2 spots was Will.i.am’s band, The Black Eyed Peas).

Strike Three, Viacom

If at first you don’t succeed, Viacom, try try again?  On April 18, 2013, Judge Louise Stanton of the 2nd Circuit District Court effectively wrote the last chapter in the epic one billion dollar copyright battle between Viacom and YouTube.

The Rise and Fall [and Rise Again?] of BlackBerry

It was 1999 when Research In Motion (RIM) first imprinted itself in the world of electronic communication. When the company reached its peak it was difficult to imagine that an innovative company such as RIM would sit idly by watching the market change. RIM’s lack of innovation compared to its competitors is what caused its […]

SOCAN I Say I Had a Great Time Last Semester in Osgoode’s IP Intensive Program?

I write this blog as a final rumination on the past two and half months of my law school life, which have been spent at the copyright collective known as the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). I think I can safely say that the time I have spent there has […]

ventureLAB – Excellent Client Service and the Entrepreneurial Spirit: A Semester in Osgoode’s IP Intensive Program

Prior to starting at ventureLAB (VL), I was unsure of what to expect from my placement and felt a little out of my element. In the past, I had little exposure to entrepreneurs, particularly small to medium sized technology start-ups, but felt excited about the opportunity to apply the intellectual property (IP) law information I […]

Owning an email: Bad in Theory, Worse in Practice

The recent UK decision of Fairstar Heavy Transport NV v Adkins & Anor dealt with the question of whether someone could have a proprietary right to an email.  However, rather than contemplating the copyright rights to an email, the claim dealt with a more abstract proprietary right.

IP Osgoode Speaker Series: Justice Roger Hughes – Advocacy Skills and IP: Observations from the Bench

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”.

Legal Challenges of Autonomous Driving

On September 25th earlier this year, California became the third state in the US, following Nevada and Florida, to pass legislation in allowing the operation of driverless cars on the road. Two short years earlier, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab director Sebastian Thrun unveiled that Google had created the world’s first autonomous car.

ICANN See Some Problems: New Domains and Freedom of XXXpression

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 […]