David Meurer is a PhD candidate in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York and Ryerson Universities and Senior Research Assistant, Artmob. Artmob is a research project driven by several principles: that Canadians should have greater online access to publicly funded cultural collections; that Canadian cultural institutions have a responsibility to make […]
Peter Waldkirch is a second year LL.B. student at the University of Ottawa. Can someone own facts? According to the US “hot news” doctrine, the answer is – sorta. Under certain circumstances, a news gathering organization can receive “quasi-property” rights in facts against allegedly free-riding competitors. As neither property nor copyright, the rarely used hot […]
Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. On March 23, 2010, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) released its long-awaited decision over Google’s sale of trademark keywords in its AdWords service and the resulting litigious skirmish with various trademark owners in France (this French skirmish was covered in a previous IPilogue […]
Nirav Bhatt is an LLM candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. China’s economic progress is coming in leaps and bounds, be it rapid development of infrastructure or moving at a rate much faster than its counterparts. But the recent Google-China controversy raises concerns about whether this will cause major problems for China in the long run. […]
Kevin Osborne is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and is taking the Patent Law course. Earlier this month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) confirmed Amazon.com's controversial 1-Click patent (PDF) following a re-examination of newly-submitted prior art (via TechFlash). This re-examination sheds light on the difference between the novelty and obviousness […]
Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. At this year’s Canadian Music Week International Breakfast event, Jaron Lanier had a few moments to call upon his audience of fellow music industry top thinkers and executives to consider this question: “What happens when we stop shaping technology and it starts shaping us?” […]
Billy Barnes is a JD candidate at the University of Toronto. According to a report commissioned by ICANN, the organization that oversees the domain name system, less than one quarter of domain name ownership records are accurate. Recent statements by the FBI and the UK Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) have drawn upon this report […]
Nathan Fan is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. In yet another Prince related copyright infringement suit, the Ninth Circuit in the U.S. has taken the opportunity to address the scope of the damage recovery provision in the DMCA for bogus takedown notices. In the recently released order granting partial summary judgement, federal […]
Stuart Freen is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. South Australian parliament recently came under fire for passing a new anti-anonymity amendment to its electoral act. Described by the Australian media as “draconian”, the new law would require online commenters, bloggers and even talk radio show callers to fully identify themselves before providing […]
Jamie Goodman is a J.D. candidate at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Patent Law course. Facebook, a website whose primary platform is based around the notion of sharing, recently received an exclusive patent on its focal “News Feed” layout, which could very well hinder many other social networking sites from sharing information in a […]