Denis Borges Barbosa is a Lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, and Intellectual Property Law Professor at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Marcus Lessa (Institute of Economics, UFRJ, Brazil) is a Partner at Denis Borges Barbosa Advogados Law Firm, Rio de Janeiro. The comparison may – or may not – seem strange, but may […]
Stuart Freen is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. I’ll admit it: When I went to the website for the Charter for Innovation, Creativity, and Access to Knowledge and watched the inane video prominently posted on the front page my first impression was that it was going to be a bit foolish. After studying […]
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 […]
In his April 2008 report, ‘Between a Hard Rock and a Soft Space: Design, Creative Practice and Innovation’, Dr. John H. Howard discusses how the arts, humanities and social sciences can contribute to innovation systems and innovation policy by recognizing that design and creative practice play a central role in innovation. He argues that, while […]
Although a patent is typically seen as a right to exclude others, the willingness of American courts to automatically provide that right through a permanent or preliminary injunction has been affected by the Supreme Court of the United States in Ebay v. MercExchange (547 U.S. 388 (2006)). In a recent article, Prof. Richard Epstein argues […]
On March 18th, MIT announced that its faculty had unanimously voted to adopt a university wide open access policy. The policy mandates that faculty must make a copy of any scholarly articles they publish available to be included in MIT’s freely accessible online repository. This follows recent similar announcements from Harvard Law School, Harvard Faculty […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. As Kate Lacey correctly notes in her post, the Google Books settlement creates what is essentially a single purpose private compulsory licensing regime benefiting only Google-assuming the settlement is approved at the upcoming fairness hearing for which the filing deadline […]
Scientific discourse has always been encouraged as a means of nurturing accuracy and development, but according to a recent article by Andre Picard, the internet has changed the nature of scientific debate for the worse. According to Picard, in the world of cyberspace, scientific “evidence” now increasingly takes the form of anecdotal reports, and “debate” […]
Andrea Slane is the Executive Director of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy (CILP) at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law and is an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. The practice of "sexting" - teens sending sexual, nude or semi-nude photos of themselves through text messaging programs on cell phones - is currently garnering […]
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 […]