Free Speech Online Buoyed, but Concerns Remain

Last Monday, the British Columbia Supreme Court released an important decision regarding online defamation in Crookes v. Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 2008 BCSC 1424.  In the decision, Justice Kelleher addressed two issues: (1) whether proving ‘publication’ requires evidence of individuals following hyperlinks, and (2) whether creating a hyperlink to defamatory material constitutes ‘republication’ of that material.  […]

A New Chapter for the Google Books Library Project

The Google Books Library Project is a hugely ambitious initiative to catalogue the millions of books in the collections of several major libraries and include them into Google Book Search. Similar to a card catalog, each book profile displays basic bibliographic information about the book and often includes a few sentences to display the search […]

“A Decisive Movement for the Future of a Civilized Internet”: French Senate Votes Overwhelmingly in Favour of Enacting Three Strikes Law

In a move that is sure to make legislators around the world stand up and take notice, the French Senate recently sent a clear message to those engaged in illegal downloading that their  behaviour will not be tolerated. In a landslide vote of approval which crossed party lines, the French Senate voted 297 to 15 […]

Fighting Organized Crime with the Help of IP Law

In a recent crackdown against a notorious motorcycle gang, the Mongols, a California district court judge has decided to strip away the gang’s right to use its registered trademark name. The forfeiture of the trademark is believed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Welk to allow authorities to stop gang members and their affiliates on the […]

Facebook Photos and Media Freeloading: An Unfair Deal

The user-oriented approach to copyright law expressed in CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada cannot be used to justify media freeloading under the guise of fair dealing.  After the death of Stefanie Rengel, four major Toronto newspapers ran photos of the victim that were taken from Facebook.  Does this practice falls under […]

Patent Grid Lock: Clearing Traffic

Trying to get from point A to B can be frustrating, particularly when stuck in gridlock. A situation Michael Heller likens to the American (and by default, the Canadian) patent system. Heller argues in his article titled “Where are the Cures” [1], that the current patent laws hinder researchers’ abilities to develop medical cures. The […]

Social Networking and Profile Ownership in Hays

In a recent blog post, Judith Kirkpatrick discusses two British cases dealing with profile ownership on the social networking websites LinkedIn and Facebook [1].  According to Kirkpatrick, the decision in Hays Specialist Recruitment (Holding) Ltd. v. Ions suggests the conclusion that “your LinkedIn profile if used in the course of your employment might not belong […]

Branded: The Battle for Trade-marks on the Web

Steve Lohr’s article “A New Battle is Beginning in Branding for the Web” highlights the trade-mark issues that are emerging in response to the ever expanding realm of internet technology. As David Vaver explains, trade-marks exist “to identify the trade source of products and services to potential customers.”  However, as Lohr points out, those products […]

Good for PR or just going soft? Making patents public for the greater good

The following is based on the Globe and Mail article "Major companies agree to make anti-pollution patents public," by Martin Mittelstadedt. Since January 2008 patents developed with the goal of fighting pollution have been put into the public domain by a growing number of large companies, such as DuPont and Xerox. Dubbed the "eco-patent commons," […]

Ohio Supreme Court Holds that Retained Memory Can Constitute a Trade Secret

In the past courts have drawn a distinction between trade secrets that were tangible or written and those that were retained in memory, offering protection for the former. That is, if employees held in their memory certain secret information from a previous job, they were able to disseminate or use said information with impunity in […]