As we celebrate the holidays, IP Osgoode would like to take this moment to appreciate our IP Osgoode community members’ interest, readership, and support over the past year.

With 2019 coming to a close, we reflect on those who have given so much to the world of IP and technology and who are no longer with us. We fondly remember Sir Henry Carr, Professor Ian Kerr and Professor Shamnad Basheer, who passed away this past year. The world of IP & technology has lost far too early leading legal scholars and friends to many of us. Each was an extraordinary person, whose memory will live and legacy will endure in our hearts and in the wider field of IP.

Looking back on 2019, IP Osgoode had a very busy year, trailblazing ahead with new events and activities. A few most notable highlights are as follows:

• On 11 February 2019, IP Osgoode and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) co-hosted the ‘Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Effective Strategies for IP Commercialization and Success’ symposium.

• On 21 March 2019, IP Osgoode hosted Bracing for Impact (Part II: Data, Policy & Innovation) conference series. We encourage you to review conference highlights and proceedings and save the date for Bracing for Impact Part III on Emerging Technologies, which will be taking place on 16 -17 March 2020 in Herzliya and Jerusalem, Israel. More information and registration will be available on IP Osgoode website in early January 2020.

• On March 25, 2019 IP Osgoode Speaks Series featured Professor Lior Zemer on “The Fallacy of Constitutional Intellectual Property”. Professor Zemer will be returning to Osgoode in 2020 to offer a talk on “Art and Authorship in the Ghetto and Concentration Camps: An Essay on Copyright and Morality”.

• In April 2019, a report evaluating IP Osgoode’s Innovation Clinic, authored by Professor Pina D’Agostino and entitled, “From Start-up to Scale-up: A Report on the Innovation Clinic in Canada”, was published.

• The Innovation Clinic was piloted in the Osgoode curriculum for the 2019/2020 academic year as a for-credit course for upper-year students. Since its inception in 2010, the Innovation Clinic has been successfully running and scaling up without academic credit to nearly one hundred students who have volunteered with the Clinic and served more than 270 clients across Canada and US, offering various forms of IP and commercialization assistance. More information about the Innovation Clinic can be found here.  

• The IP Intensive Program admitted 10 Osgoode students for the fall 2019 term to complete 10-week placements at organizations that are heavily involved with IP matters. You can read more about the different placement organizations and the students’ personal experiences in the IP Intensive.

• In October 2019, IP Osgoode welcomed Olha Senyshyn, IP Osgoode’s new Assistant Director.

• This year our award-winning blog IPilogue featured over 60 new thoughtful intellectual property law and technology blog posts by student editors as well as by scholars and experts from around the world. Professor David Vaver contributed a piece on the new amendments to the Patent Act. All blog posts by Osgoode students continue to be considered for Gowling WLG Best Blog in IP Law and Technology Prize.

• We refreshed our IP Osgoode website where we continue to offer new and unexplored viewpoints to public policy discussions staying on top of leading IP law developments in Canada and internationally. Subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter IPIGRAM to receive the latest news and updates on IP law and technology issues.

We would also love to hear from you about your most significant highlights and achievements of 2019. A community is as strong as its members and we continue to welcome your feedback and hear from you on ways to work together. Let us know if you have any ideas for us to make 2020 an even more fascinating year!

On behalf of IP Osgoode, we wish you a happy holiday season and a creative and productive new year! 

We will return from the holiday break on 6 January 2020. As we settle into 2020 we will be paying homage to 2019 once more with our annual IP Year in review, highlighting key developments and changes to the Canadian IP landscape which took place in 2019. So stay tuned!

Stay connected to receive announcements of more upcoming exciting events and activities in the new year! (www.iposgoode.ca, @IPOsgoode)

Warmest thanks & wishes,
Pina

Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino is the Founder & Director of IP Osgoode, the IP Intensive Program, and the Innovation Clinic, the Editor-in-Chief for the IPilogue and the Intellectual Property Journal, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.