With a well-deserved reputation for counterfeiting and knockoffs, we have rarely looked to China for innovation and invention. Nevertheless, as an ever-growing giant on the world’s economic stage, China has taken steps to remedy this deficiency. About a year ago, Thomson-Reuters released their second report on the nation’s patent prowess, suggesting that China’s patent will outpace Japan and the United States in 2011, a year earlier than their initial prediction in the first edition of their study in 2008. Although the United States was still the leader in patents by a wide margin in 2010, responsible for over a quarter of all applications, its growth is slowing while China’s is surging. China filed 1.2 million patent applications in 2010, 56% more than the previous year while the number of American applications dropped for the third consecutive year.

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Posted in IP, Jurisdiction, Patentability, Patents, Patents Course Topic
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Representatives of the defunct rock band, The Velvet Underground, have brought an action against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. concerning rights over the world’s most iconic banana image a full 45 years after it was first released.

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Posted in Copyright, Design, Image, Licensees, Moral Rights, Music Industry, Music Industry, Ownership, Trademarks, US
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Looking at the current state of trans-border licensing of music inEurope, the European example can teach mainly what to avoid. Even more so, many of the issues discussed in the EU might even be totally irrelevant for Canada. Unlike Canada, the EU currently consists of 27 member states, and as of today, there is no unified EU copyright code.

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Posted in Copyright, Digital Downloads, European Union, Feature Post, IP, Jurisdiction, Music Industry
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Last semester, I had the privilege of being a part of the inaugural class of the Intellectual Property Law & Technology Intensive Program at Osgoode Hall Law School. The program is a two week intensive seminar series, followed by a full time internship for the rest of the semester at a placement suited to our interests. There were a variety of placements available to the program, including: The Globe & Mail, Industry Canada, SOCAN and other placements in both industry and government. I was fortunate enough to be selected for an international placement with CodeX: The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford Law School.

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Posted in Copyright, Feature Post, IP, Licensees
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