What’s Innovative About Cryptocurrency and Hayek’s “Free Market Money”? — Some Understated Obstacles in the Race for Blockchain Patents

If we are going to be fair, the cryptocurrency idea dates back to almost forty years ago. In an article published in the Wall Street Journal on August 19, 1977, Friedrich Hayek — the economist and philosopher whose work on a theory of money earned him a Nobel Prize — anticipated that many different types […]

#ISHTIP 2017 - Intellectual Property as Circulation and Control

The International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property (ISHTIP) will be holding its annual workshop in Toronto, July 12th-14th, 2017. Organized by the Centre for Innovation law and Policy at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, and co-sponsored in part by Osgoode Hall Law School and IP Osgoode, the workshop will […]

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make (Your Own) Lemonade: Beyoncé Sued for Her Latest Album Trailer

Beyoncé’s Lemonade left a sour taste in at least one person’s mouth. Matthew Fulks, a Louisville-based filmmaker and creative director at the WDRB Kentucky news station, is taking the singer to court for copyright infringement. The plaintiff claims that Lemonade, Beyoncé’s trailer for her latest album, copies “visual and sonic elements” from his short-film “Palinoia.”

N-C-Double Don’t: Student-Athletes’ Likenesses No Longer Free for Use

A landmark ruling on Friday August 8, 2014 determined that the National Collegiate Athletic Association  (the “NCAA”) can no longer stop its athletes from selling the rights to their own names, likenesses, and images. As such, major college student-athletes in men’s football and basketball could walk away from their locker rooms with gym bags full of […]

Court Rejects Class Action Settlement in Long-Standing Copyright Dispute Between Lawyers and Legal Publisher

An Ontario Superior Court has rejected a class action settlement between the publisher Thomson Reuters and a collection of Canadian lawyers and law firms, stating that the proposed settlement is not “fair, reasonable, or in the best interests of the Class Members.” The proposed settlement would have seen Thomson Reuters fund a trust for public […]

Intellectual Property Rights in Non-Genetically Engineered Plant Species

In the past, Monsanto has been successful in defending the company's patents concerning the genes and modified cells present in genetically modified (GM) plants in both the United States and in Canada. Are Monsanto's new products going to be a hot topic of debate? Likely yes, but maybe not for the reasons you would expect.

Can Capitalism and Collaboration Co-exist? Tech Sector Cross-licensing and the Emergence of ‘Cooperative Competition’

In this year’s State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama reaffirmed his Administration’s commitment to addressing economic inequality by fostering the jobs of the future: “We know that the nation that goes all-in on innovation today will own the global economy tomorrow. This is an edge America cannot surrender.” In order to do […]

IP Intensive Program: A Semester at TVO

I recently completed an IP Intensive Placement with TVOntario (TVO) and the experience could not have been any better.

Going the Way of the Doha? The TPP and Contested Intellectual Property and International Trade Linkages

It has been nearly twenty years since the Uruguay Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) trade talks that created the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. In the intervening decades, multilateral trade negotiations have stalled and international agreements relating to intellectual property (IP) law have trended towards bi- and plurilateral levels. And, […]

Plain Packaging for Tobacco Products in the EU Up in Smoke?

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire… or at least a heated debate. On October 8th, 2013, the European Parliament voted on the proposed revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). One of the highly contested issues concerned intellectual property rights and the labeling and packaging of tobacco products.