Robert Dewald is a J.D. Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School 

Canadian telecommunications giant Research in Motion (RIM), which manufacturers the popular BlackBerry, has reportedly offered information and tools to assist India’s government in monitoring encrypted emails and messaging services (Reuters).  India, which had threatened to shut down the BlackBerry service, is the latest country to pursue access to user communications from RIM.  Recently the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also threatened to ban BlackBerry services unless RIM provides access to user data (Reuters).

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Posted in Cross Border Issues, Human Rights Issues, IP, Privacy, Technology, Telecommunications
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Robert Dewald is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

Online keyword advertising, using internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, continues to be a highly contentious area of the law.  Litigation involving trademark infringement by competing companies in keyword advertising campaigns continues in Canada and around the world.  In Canada, it appears that competing companies are allowed to utilize each others’ respective trademarks as keywords for online advertising so long as the trademark does not appear within the sponsored link or advertisement (see the VCC decision).  On the surface, advertisers have great latitude to use competitors’ trademarks for keyword ads.  Yet many jurisdictions around the world attempt to prevent ads that mislead customers or damage competitors’ trademarks. 

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Posted in Internet, IP, Trademarks
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Robert Dewald is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

The race for political office is competitive and fraught with risk where adversaries seek out support by advertising and creating political platforms to appeal to the majority of voters.  As the cost of political campaigns mount, politicians on the campaign trail seek advantages whenever possible.  Pop culture and entertainment has increasingly captured public interest, and it is no surprise that actors, actresses, music and other aspects of pop culture have been incorporated into political campaigns as effective advertising tools.   

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Posted in Copyright, copyright reform, Fair Dealing, IP, Music Industry, Music Industry
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Robert Dewald is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

Online advertising is a growing and lucrative business.  In 2009, $22.7 billion USD was spent on online advertising within the U.S. which is projected to grow to $25.1 billion USD by 2010.  A significant amount of this revenue is generated by Google, Yahoo and other search engines which allow targeted advertising linked to keywords entered when searching the internet.  Advertising can be linked to any word, even those registered as trademarks for a competing company.   This advertising technique allows the bidders to have their website posted as a sponsored link above the organic search results, potentially diverting customers away from the website initially sought after. 

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Posted in Internet, IP, Trademarks
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