The IPilogue is IP Osgoode’s online journal of IP Law and Technology. It publishes analysis and commentary on current pressing intellectual property, technology, privacy and related legal issues. The IPilogue features curated contributions from students, scholars, and experts within the Osgoode community, from our network of affiliated researchers and partners, as well as from professionals and scholars in disciplines outside of law.
Editor in Chief: Prof. Carys Craig (ccraig@osgoode.yorku.ca)
Submission inquiries: iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca
Fashion is everywhere you look. In the US, the fashion industry's annual sales are higher than those of books, movies and music combined. Everyone wears clothes, whether for necessity, the desire to follow current trends, or for any reason in between. Fashion can be an indication of an individual's social status, and also reflects cultural […]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently launched a new web site called TOSBack which tracks changes to the terms of service and privacy policies of several popular websites. Among the tracked sites are Facebook, EBay, World of Warcraft, and various other social networking sites and internet service providers. Visitors can see a change log for […]
The Federal Court of Appeal has recently released its first decision interpreting Section 8 of the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations [PM(NOC)]. The PM(NOC) Regulations essentially serve as a link between the patent system and the drug regulatory approval system. The Regulations enhance protection for pharmaceutical patents by requiring generic companies to "clear" relevant […]
Ashlee Froese is an Osgoode Hall alumnus and currently practices intellectual property at the law firm of Keyser Mason Ball LLP. Facebook Inc.'s New Policy On June 9, 2009 Facebook Inc. announced that it would be releasing personalized URLs for Facebook profiles (i.e. "facebook.com/AshleeFroese" as opposed to previously used profile URLs "facebook.com/followed by a randomly […]
Giovanni Maria Riccio is Professor of Private Comparative Law at the University of Salerno. Professor Riccio is an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. The French Constitutional Court held that the "Creation and Internet" law - the law promoted by the Olivennes Commission and strictly supported by the President Sarkozy - is unconstitutional. This Act - whose […]
On June 1st the Supreme Court of the United States granted a petition to hear the case of Bilski v. Doll. At the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Bilski patent for a method of hedging risk in commodities trading was rejected, affirming the decision of the USPTO. The majority of the court moved away from the […]
A treaty to improve access to copyrighted materials for the visually impaired was recently introduced at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by Brazil, Ecuador, and Paraguay. The treaty received no direct objections, however, different opinions were expressed as to how to treat the proposal and other limitations and exceptions in the future. For many this seems like […]
In a recent blog post by Prof. Shamnad Basheer at Spicy IP, he discussed the issue of whether or not patent lawyers should be required to achieve a certain level of training in science/engineering before being admitted to the patent bar. In his discussion, he addressed the question of whether individual academic institutions should be […]
Does Google know what you're doing online? Eighty-eight percent of the time, the answer might be yes. Earlier this month a group of graduate students at UC Berkeley released a detailed report on the extent of online tracking and the disconnect between reality and user expectations. The data in the report was collected from various […]
In general, intellectual property (IP) rights encourage innovation by providing creators with an economic incentive to develop and share ideas through a form of a temporary monopoly. Proponents of traditional IP rights believe that individual creators should not only have a chance to profit from their works but also control how they are used. In […]