IP Osgoode Speaks Series Video: The U.S. Supreme Court's Aereo decision and the U.S.' international obligation to implement the "making available right." - Are we there yet?

IP Osgoode would like to thank everyone who attended Professor Jane Ginsburg's lecture, titled “The U.S. Supreme Court's Aereo decision and the U.S.' international obligation to implement the 'making available right': Are we there yet?,” on October 6, 2014 at Osgoode Hall Law School. The video of the lecture is available here. You can read Professor Ginsburg's […]

IP Osgoode Speaks Series Video: Copyright Exceptions as Users' Rights? An Empirical Critique

IP Osgoode would like to thank everyone who attended Dr. Emily Hudson's lecture, titled “Copyright Exceptions as Users' Rights? An Empirical Critique,” on September 29, 2014 at Osgoode Hall Law School. The video of the lecture is available here. You can also read Joseph Turcotte's reflections of Professor Hudson's presentation here.

Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition

 On 19 August 2014, Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante released a draft of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition. This publication is a 1,200 page document that in many parts reads as a treatise on U.S. copyright law. Its size alone speaks to the complexity of identifying and protecting copyright and […]

Promises That Can Kill: An Update

Under the Patent Act, an invention must be useful to be patentable. While in Canada the inventor does not need to describe the utility of the invention in the patent, where the patent makes a promise of utility, utility is measured against that promise. If the inventor does not make an explicit promise of a […]

U.S. Implementation of the “making available” right: Are we there yet?

The “making available” right, as articulated in the WIPO Copyright Treaty art. 8 (and the WPPT arts. 10 and 14), applies to the offering to the public of on-demand access to a work in the form of a stream or of a download.  The “umbrella solution” adopted at the 1996 Diplomatic Conference that yielded the […]

African Patent Offices Not Fit for Purpose

Patents are public documents, issued to inventors by individual states, certifying that the named inventor has been granted a limited monopoly to exclude other persons from working, selling or using an identified invention without the consent or permission of the inventor or her/his assignees or successors-in-title during the lifespan of the patent. The regime of […]

Nice Classification of Trade-marks – Perhaps Not So Nice for Canadians

 As discussed in Allison McLean’s “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes coming to the Trade-marks Act” June 5, 2014 post, significant changes to the Canadian Trade-marks Act were introduced in Bill C-31, the 2014 budget bill.  While the most controversial aspect of the trade-mark provisions of Bill C-31 is the removal of the need to claim or declare use in […]

Fundamental Change to Trade-mark Law Opposed by Business and Trade-mark Professionals

Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 Act No. 1, which will legislate into law the federal government’s recent budget, includes amendments to a number of statutes.  Of particular interest are the amendments to the Trade-marks Act (“TMA”).  The changes would reverse what has been the fundamental basis of Canadian trade-mark law for over 150 […]

Gaining Insight into Canadian Music Week: An interview with Susan H. Abramovitch

Susan Abramovitch, a partner at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP and the Head of the firm's Entertainment Law Practice, will be speaking on two panels this Saturday at Canadian Music Week (CMW) to discuss Canada's copyright regime and recent developments in Canadian music law and business, and their impact on the Canadian music industry. IP Osgoode had […]

Getting Profits From Patents: An Interview with Ed Fan and Loreto Grimaldi

The course Legal Values: Commercializing Intellectual Property is being offered for the first time at Osgoode Hall Law School this winter term.  The IPilogue sat down with Adjunct Professors, Ed Fan (Torys LLP, Partner) and Loreto Grimaldi (MedAvail Technologies Inc., COO & General Counsel) to talk about this unique course. As the business world increasingly relies on an […]