The European Commission has proposed amendments to the Community Trade Mark (CTM) Regulation and Trade Marks Directive. The primary function is to harmonize EU member trade-mark laws. This bureaucratic hygiene aim – which resulted in a mixture of trade-mark rights expansion and contraction – stands in contrast to the current, controversial and (in my opinion) [...]

Posted in Canada, Design, European Union, IP, Regulatory Policy, Trademarks, WIPO
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Tout arrive en France, especially for folks following recent intellectual property news. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) released a key judgment in January in a case that pitted copyright against freedom of expression.

Posted in Commercialization, Contracts, Copyright, copyright reform, Design, European Union, Fashion Industry, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Image, Infringement, IP, Ownership, Supreme Court of Canada, Uncategorized
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Giuseppina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, the Founder and Director of the IP Intensive Program, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. 2012 was an action-packed year in the world of intellectual property law. There were flurries of reports, decisions, and new legislation that confronted many core principles of [...]

Posted in Copyright, copyright reform, Design, Fashion Industry, General, IP, Patents, Privacy, Trademarks
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Put this in your pipe and smoke it: The High Court of Australia recently ruled that the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act withstands constitutional scrutiny, in JT International SA v Commonwealth of Australia. Retailers and smokers will thus soon find themselves scrutinizing things as well, in order to distinguish between identical cigarette packages stripped of all branding and trade-marks.

Posted in Competition, Competition Law, Design, Freedom of Speech, IP, Ownership, Regulatory Policy, Trademarks
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