Ipilogue

Courts and privacy advocates across North America have long faced challenges in resolving the questions of whether police officers should be given the right to search the contents of cellphones of an arrestee and if yes, when and under what circumstances this should be permitted. The Supreme Court of the United States has taken the […]

The culture industries appear to be at a crossroads. Shifting advertising practices as well as audience viewing and consumption habits continue to contribute to new challenges and opportunities for media and entertainment providers throughout the world. With its new “A Space for All of Us” strategy, Canada’s national public broadcaster – the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada […]

On July 18, 2014, the world of everyone who streams music or videos containing music – that is, almost everyone who uses the internet – changed a little bit. On that date, the Copyright Board released a decision certifying two tariffs proposed by the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). These […]

In Re Roslin Institute, the U.S. Court of Appeals delivered a potential setback to the biotechnology industry when it confirmed that inventions which are identical to those found in nature cannot be patented. Specifically, it denied patent protection to products of the somatic cloning process invented by Campbell and Wilmut, which included Dolly the Sheep. Since Dolly possesses identical […]

The re-posting of this analysis is part of a cross-posting collaboration with MediaLaws: Law and Policy of the Media in a Comparative Perspective.   The Italian Data Protection Authority on Google’s privacy policies After an investigation started one year ago, following the modification of Google’s privacy policies, the Italian DPA has issued yesterday a new provision, […]

In Parts I and II of this series of blog posts, I discussed the ongoing digital copyright reform in Hong Kong. Specifically, I called for the transplant of the Canadian UGC exception to the jurisdiction, as part of an effort to enlarge the creative, political, social and cultural space of individual internet users.Since the last blog post, the Hong […]

Marvel may have to call in The Avengers for help with this one. The comic giant filed papers on July 14th arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that it should not review the Second Circuit appeal court's decision in Marvel Characters, Inc. v Kirby. The case concerned whether the estate of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby […]

The 2014 MedEdge Summit was a resounding success. Academics, innovators, entrepreneurs, and practitioners filled the auditorium and networking booths. As one of the lucky attendees, I zoomed in on Dr. Cafazzo’s talk about the significant lack of human use considerations (“reverse human engineering”) in the design of traditional medical products, and the introduction of new […]

Avid players of the popular video game Grand Theft Auto V may recognize this scenario: your character is tasked with transporting a female celebrity named Lacey Jonas home from where she is hiding in an alleyway. During the mission, you evade the paparazzi while Lacey spouts bons mots like "I'm really famous. I didn't do anything!" […]

AstraZeneca has been selling Nexium in Canada for 13 years.  It is prescribed to treat ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and related diseases. The active ingredient in Nexium is esomeprazole, one of the enantiomers of omeprazole.  Omeprazole is also prescribed to treat these same diseases. Canadian patent no. 2,139,653 (the 653 patent) claims esomeprazole with […]