Potential of US Copyright Agenda to Endanger Freedom of Expression in China

One of the most prevalent criticisms leveled against China today is the lack of human rights afforded to its citizens.  This is particularly so in the area of civil and political rights, where China’s single-party unitary rule has made political prisoners of pro-democracy activists.  Western advocacy groups have applied political pressure to convince the Chinese […]

Discourse About Patents and Standards Highlight Tension Between Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Law

As a part of my undergraduate studies, I took a course in business strategy, and one of the most memorable topics was technological lock-in.  We were taught that there is explicit value in being a technological first-mover because such businesses can create switching costs for purchasers by establishing a proprietary standard in a new market. […]

VANOC Ticket Broker Suit Raises Concerns about Reach of Official Marks

Ticket Scalping is getting a lot of attention in Canada lately. In Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty made headlines by threatening to introduce legislation to stem TicketMaster’s practice of diverting potential purchasers to its resell site TicketsNow. In Saskatchewan, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General recently released (Warning: PDF Link)a discussion paper concerning ‘Ticket […]

In re Bilski North of the Border

On March 13, IP Osgoode held a panel discussion entitled Business Method Patents: Bilski and Beyond. While the tagline of the event indicated it was to ‘Explore the effect in Canada of recent US business method patent jurisprudence,’ attendees got treated to a lot more. Speaking from a wide array of perspectives, the panelists provided […]

Resolution to Kindle 2’s Text-to-Speech Issue Benefits All Involved

The paperless office is yet to arrive, but that hasn’t stopped companies from introducing innovative ways of consuming written materials. One such attempt is Amazon.com’s e-book, called ‘Kindle’. When first released in late 2007, I looked at how purchasers of content for the device may be limited in their ability to re-sell their copy of […]

New Top Level Domains (TLDs) Create Tension For Trademark Owners

Internet users are familiar with the current top level domain structure of the World Wide Web. .com, .edu, and .org, amongst others, are all part of the common vocabulary used to navigate the wealth of information available online. Recently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved a plan to add more top […]

The Grey-Market: Are the Benefits Worth the Costs?

Grey market goods are legally-produced goods obtained in a foreign country which are imported into a domestic market via an unauthorized distribution channel.  These parallel-import goods are typically obtained in a country where the cost of such goods are low enough so that the importer can sell them at a price lower than the domestic […]

Internet Textbook Businesses Could Help Curb Textbook Piracy

Funding for higher education has always been a touchy topic for politicians.  While few dispute that an educated population is beneficial for society, it is often less clear who should foot the bill for this benefit.  Of course, a large part of the cost is tuition, but more and more, the costs of textbooks are […]

Widening the Net: Disclosure Requirements for Online Exploiters of Children

On December 2, 2008, the European Court of Human Rights released a decision concerning the prevention of online child exploitation.  The decision, K.U. v. Finland, 2 Dec 2008, App No. 2872/02, held that the Finnish government violated the right to private life of a 12-year old boy when it failed to update its telecommunications laws, […]

Perceptions of IP: A Review

In a recently released report by the Intellectual Property Institute (IPI) in London, Dr. Roya Ghafele takes a unique approach in synthesizing the many existing viewpoints in the multi-faceted arena of IP public policy debate.  In an age where these debates are becoming ever more complex and heated, her accessible and balanced summary is useful […]