Earlier this month, Twitter filed a lawsuit (Twitter v. Holder) against the US Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), claiming they prevented Twitter from publishing statistics pertaining to the number and type of US Government surveillance requests received. Twitter asserts that the publication ban is an unconstitutional violation of their […]

Under the Patent Act, an invention must be useful to be patentable. While in Canada the inventor does not need to describe the utility of the invention in the patent, where the patent makes a promise of utility, utility is measured against that promise. If the inventor does not make an explicit promise of a […]

This past spring, the Copyright Board of Canada issued its decision certifying Re:Sound’s Tariff 8 and setting the royalties collected for webcasting in Canada. Many parties of interest were incensed by the proposed rates, which are difficult to understand without the context of the entire royalty system in Canada.

With the rising popularity of video and computer games, a new form of user generated content ("UGC") and a whole new set of intellectual property issues is emerging. Science fiction web series such as  Red vs. Blue use copyrighted graphics and characters from the popular Xbox video game Halo to create new comedic content parodying first person shooter […]

Recent research is shining a new light onto the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) decision that is said to have “reconceptualized” fair dealing as an integral part of copyright law in Canada (Craig, p. 449). During a 29 September 2014 lecture in the IPOsgoode Speaks Series, Dr. Emily Hudson, the Career Development Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at the Oxford […]

Professor Jane C. Ginsburg will be at Osgoode Hall Law School on Monday, October 6 (2:30PM to 4:30PM) to give a presentation entitled: "The U.S. Supreme Court's Aereo decision and the U.S.' international obligation to implement the 'making available right': Are we there yet?".  Click here for details.   RSVP today to attend the talk!  For […]