In late 2007, Virgin Enterprises successfully opposed the registration of “VIRGIN CANDLES” in Israel. The applicant sought to register the TM in association with candles. The Israel Patent and Trademark Office accepted that because Virgin is a famous TM and had a large range of products and widespread international distribution, a likelihood of confusion did […]
Issues surrounding medicine patents truly test the moral groundings of patent law. Specifically, when companies develop and patent drugs that treat life threatening diseases, the inherent morality behind restrictive patent laws seems to lose legitimacy. The objectives underlying intellectual property must be weighed against the immediate humanitarian agenda. The anti-patent camp can argue that corporations […]
On January 28th, 2008, the Iraqi Ministry of Culture and the IZDIHAR Project co-hosted Iraq’s first Iraqi Copyright Awareness Conference. While it was awarded minimal media coverage, the rare congregation of authors, creators, painters, innovators and government representatives exemplified the manner in which the political and social landscape is shifting in post-Saddam Iraq. The conference […]
Editor's Note: On Monday, March 10, 2008, Prof. Lametti delivered the lecture archived here. Thanks for those of you who joined us! If you are unable to see the video above, please use the following link to open Windows Media Player on your computer: Link Bio: David Lametti is an Associate Professor of Law, McGill […]
A reason why 'new world' countries should support the protection of geographical indicators (GIs) is because the GI concept can be applied to aboriginal art so that its integrity and underlying traditional knowledge are preserved. In "Intellectual Property and Aboriginal Art,"[1] Adrian Newstead explores the misappropriation of Australian aboriginal art forms by non-aboriginals. There are […]
Editor's note: Thanks to those of you who joined us for the lecture! This page will now provide an archive of the lecture. If you are unable to see the video above, please use the following link to open Windows Media Player on your computer: Link Abstract: In December 2007, the Canadian government planned to […]
I recently attended a lecture by professor Bruce Ziff, of the University of Alberta Law School, where he described what he termed as his only original academic idea. He posited that the reason we as a society are so restrictive about property rights is because it is basically impossible to extinguish property rights that have […]
Geographical Indicators are terms used to define names that are affixed to predominantly agricultural products (although GIs are also used for other products such as crafts and jewellery, this kind of use is less common) originating from specific geographical regions where these products are grown and manufactured and from which they derive their quality and […]