On September 14, the European Commission published draft legislation aimed at modernising the European copyright framework.  To ensure the draft legislation delivers the best outcomes for all those affected by it, the Intellectual Property Office made a call for views on the costs and benefits of the proposed measures, and suggestions for how the language […]

What happens when intellectual property law collides with the social sciences? They meld together for some fascinating experiments. In a lecture given at Osgoode Hall Law School as part of the IP Osgoode Speaks Series, Prof. Chris Buccafusco described three such experiments performed by him and his team.[1]  Specifically, their research seeks to develop an […]

The distinction between combinations and aggregations is a well-accepted principle of patent law. A combination is an assemblage of known elements whose combined use leads to a result that is different from the sum of the results of the individual elements. Whereas, an aggregation is an assemblage of elements that each produce their expected result […]

Earlier this month, Osgoode Hall Law School welcomed Amy Adler, New York University’s Emily Kempin Professor of Law, to present on copyright and the future of art. Professor Adler is a leading scholar of art law and specializes in the legal regulation of artistic expression, sexuality and free speech. Visual artists today, as she describes, […]

The Value of the Pokémon Franchise If you were born in the late 1980s or early 90s or have young children, you have probably encountered a red-cheeked mouse called Pikachu or any of the hundreds of other Pokémon that exist in the Pokémon media franchise. While the premise of catching colourful creatures is rather straightforward, […]

In a recent MTV news article, author Miles Raymer opined over the “hopelessly broken” state of the US copyright system. While such a sweeping statement clearly oversimplifies the state of copyright law in the digital era, there may be some truth to it. Raymer focuses particularly on the tension between an ever-increasing market for derivative works […]