Sean O'Connor is a Professor at the University of Washington School of Law and Chair of the Law, Technology & Arts Group, specializing in intellectual property and business law involving biotechnology, cyberspace/information technology, and new media/digital arts.  Professor O'Connor is an IP Osgoode Research Affiliate. This is the second part of Professor O'Connor's feature blog […]

Stan Liebowitz is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, School of Management. Economists and non-economists alike tend to be familiar with the phrase "creative destruction" and its implications that, although established firms may bemoan new innovation upsetting apple carts in their industry, and government may try to protect […]

In her research paper titled "Of Trolls, Davids, Goliaths, and Kings: Narratives and evidence in the litigation of high-tech patents," Assistant Professor Colleen V. Chien, at Santa Clara University School of Law, provides a snapshot of U.S. patent litigation that could not only inform current efforts to reform the patent system, but could also serve […]

A recent proposal by European Commissioners Meglena Kuneva and Viviane Reding outlined a number of consumer protections relating to licensing agreements.  In the event that the proposal becomes law, software companies could be held liable for their code.  The directive requires that products, including software licensed under licensing agreements, be held to a higher standard […]

This is the issue currently being considered in the US Congress through an attempt to introduce the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (Act). The Act was initially presented in 2006, but at that time the bill was criticized because the broad wording attempted to stop any design that was "substantially similar" to the original, which would […]

A recent Ontario Superior Court ruling may impact how employees use computers at work. In R. v. Cole, 2009 CanLII 20699 (ON S.C.) Justice Paul Kane overturned a trial level decision and found that Cole did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using a computer provided by his employer. Mr. Cole was a […]