Australia is now at the centre of the global gene patent debate with a Senate inquiry that began last week in Melbourne. Senators in Australia began hearing public submissions on August 4th about the topic of gene patents in relation to the impact they have on health care costs. The inquiry centres around a bid […]
Tiffany Wong is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Overlooking the Harbourfront in downtown Toronto, I had the chance to work closely in May 2009 with in-house legal counsel at Yahoo! Canada - one of the largest internet companies with a global reach in distributing websites and online services. Yahoo! Canada keeps the […]
Lesley Ellen Harris is an Osgoode Hall Law School Alumnus ('85) who is a copyright lawyer/consultant and works on legal, business, and strategic issues in the publishing, content, entertainment, Internet, and information industries. She is the editor of the Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter and the author of several books. Her newest book is […]
The costs associated with health care in developed nations are already huge and continue to grow. In Canada, the total health spending per capita is around $4000. That number is higher in the U.S., where the current debate over health care reform has been framed by President Obama in terms of making the system more […]
The period of data protection allocated to research-based, innovative drug companies is a hotly debated topic in the pharmaceutical industry and beyond. This period of protection allows research-based, brand name drug companies to maintain a monopoly on the market for any particular drug for a specified duration. During the period of data protection, competing generic drug […]
Infopaq, founded in Denmark in 1998, is a media monitoring and analysis company. One of their services is the monitoring of keywords that appear in newspaper text. To achieve this, Infopaq scans newspaper pages and the uses software to turn the image of the page into text. If pre-determined keywords that clients want monitored appear […]
Does free speech overrule a trademark owner's interest in a domain name? According to Sutherland Institute v. Continuative LLC, a recent case by a WIPO domain dispute arbitration panel, the answer could be yes. Maybe. The case is interesting for two reasons: its discussion of free speech protection and domain names, and the deference of […]
It is often said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but in the world of copyright, flattery is a much more controversial act. If you are not already familiar with the Shepard Fairey v. The Associated Press controversy, hop over to this site and take a look at the two pictures. The original […]
Nigel D'Souza is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. I have been researching at Human Rights Law Network for over a month now and my findings are quite concerning. In terms of patent law, a skeleton based on international standards is in place but clarity is lacking. As mentioned in my previous post, […]
European Union Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to overhaul Internet downloading policies in order to facilitate simple, consumer friendly, and legal access to music and films online. Her response to a recent survey, showing 60% of people between ages 16-24 as downloaders of illegal audiovisual content, is that "internet piracy appears to become more […]