While North American IP enthusiasts had likely been pre-occupied with the controversy surrounding the stalled American anti-internet piracy bills known as SOPA and PIPA (covered by IP Osgoode here), Europe has been struggling to deal with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Even though it was designed to be an international framework for improved intellectual property […]
At the Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development -- which followed by forty years the Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and by twenty years the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development -- the negotiators sought to “reinvigorate political will and raise the level of commitment by […]
Edward Elgar Publishing has released a paperback edition of the book Copyright, Contracts, Creators - New Media, New Rules by Prof. Giuseppina D'Agostino. Copyright, Contracts, Creators evaluates the efficacy of current copyright law to address the contracting and use of creative works. It looks in particular at freelance works and argues that their copyright treatment […]
In late March, The United States Supreme Court ordered the U.S Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit to reconsider Myriad Genetics’ existing patent on two genes associated with a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer, in light of the judgement rendered in Mayo Collaborative Services v Prometheus Labs (Prometheus). A unanimous Supreme Court […]
In light of the recent Quebec student protests (see here), and the support that the protests are gaining nationwide, one might suspect that there would be a general trend towards cheaper education in Canada. However, two recent cases suggest that while that may be the case in the U.S., the same may not be true […]
On June 16, 2012, the Canada Gazette, published the proposed new regulations formalizing procedures before the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (the Board). These proposed new regulations represent an effort to enhance the efficiency of hearings before the Board through the formal adoption of codified practices and terminology already utilized by the board; the incorporation […]
On June 11 2012 an article by Vinay Menon appeared in the Toronto Star titled “Anne of Green Gables to be remade for TV”. The article reports that Kate Macdonald Butler, granddaughter to author Lucy Maud Montgomery and president of the family-owned company Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc., will be centrally involved in a new […]
When suspected Montreal “body parts” killer, Luka Magnotta, was detained in Berlin on June 4 following an international manhunt, only one small piece of a complex legal web was resolved. In addition to the ongoing murder investigation, digital issues involving web hosting of explicit content and concerns about trademark denigration have been thrust to the […]
After years of debate (almost 15, to be precise) and numerous revisions and cancellations (4, to be precise), Bill C-11 or An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, arguably the most controversial set of changes to the Canadian Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42), has just been passed by a vote of 158 to 135. […]
In the past few years, policymakers, academic commentators, consumer advocates, civil liberties groups, and user communities have expressed grave concerns about the steadily increasing levels of enforcement of intellectual property rights. Many of these concerns relate to the “alphabet soup” of transborder intellectual property enforcement, which consists of the following: SECURE (Standards to Be Employed […]