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Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Property in Canada (ipblog.ca)

Intellectual property law, copyright, trademarks and Internet law in Canada.
By Richard P.W. Stobbe

Post Frequency: 39.2/day

Last Entry: January 07, 2020 at 08:00:07

Should Canada Fast Track CleanTech Patents?

Posted on September 14, 2009
In some countries (notably, the UK and South Korea, and now Australia) cleantech inventions are being earmarked to receive expedited examination in the patent office (See for example: Green Channel for Patent Applications (UK), and this announcement about changes at the Korean IP Office, plus this post about Australia’s plans)...

Battle of the Beer Brands

Posted on September 11, 2009
Putting a lime in your beer is nothing new. But branding it apparently is. US brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. and Canadian Brick Brewing Co. Ltd. are locked in an intellectual property dispute over their labels for lime-flavoured beer. The makers of “Bud Light Lime” complain that Brick’s “Red Baron Lime” is an infringement of copyright and [...

IT Outsourcing during the ?Climb Out?

Posted on September 08, 2009
The importance of IT outsourcing - as a way to reduce costs and manage risks - has been brought into sharp focus during the economic downturn. The recession may have bottomed, but by all accounts the “climb out” will be long and slow. Here are a few pointers to consider for the negotiation and management of [...

CleanTech Funding in Canada

Posted on September 02, 2009
Starting today, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is accepting applications from Canadian companies for funding of clean technologies. Statements of Interest (SOI) are being accepted from today until October 21st for preliminary screening in the fields of Energy Exploration & Production, Power Generation, Energy Efficiency, Transportation, Agriculture, Forestry and Mining and Waste Management...

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Employees & Technology

Posted on August 31, 2009
Two recent cases illustrate the limits of employee rights in connection with their use of technology related to the workplace. Although these are extreme examples, they reinforce some basic rules about employee “Acceptable Use” policies, and employee use of technology: Employee Blog: In the case of Alberta Union of Provincial Employees v...

TWEET Trade-mark in Canada

Posted on August 26, 2009
Recent news articles have shown that Twitter Inc. has run into problems with its US trade-mark application for TWEET. Others have beaten them to the trademarks office with applications for marks such as TWEETMARKS, COTWEET and TWEETPHOTO, which have been cited by the US trademarks office as being confusing with TWEET...

iPod Apps: Make Music, Not War

Posted on August 24, 2009
Recent news articles from Newsweek and cnet report that the US military has deployed the iPod Touch and iPhone in the battlefield, as a user-friendly, multifunction device to assist soldiers with communication, translation, intelligence-gathering, logistics and training...

Online Defamation Update: Cohen v. Google

Posted on August 20, 2009
Online defamation has always been about two issues: there’s the legal question of whether the online comments are “defamatory” according to the standard legal tests, but before you get to that stage, you need to know who is writing the defamatory comments...

Canadian P2P Copyright Battle Continues

Posted on August 18, 2009
IsoHunt, a British Columbia-based service that indexes BitTorrents for peer-to-peer file sharing, attempted a pre-emptive strike against the Canadian Recording Industry Association (see our previous post), by asking the Court to declare that its activities were legal under Canadian copyright law...

Canadian Company Shuts Down Microsoft Word

Posted on August 13, 2009
A small Canadian company, Infrastructures for Information Inc. (i4i), won a significant damage award earlier this year in its patent infringement fight wth Microsoft. The lawsuit claimed that MS Word 2003 and Word 2007 contained custom XML tagging features that infringed the Canadian company’s patent...

Book Titles Can?t be Trade-marked

Posted on August 12, 2009
In what appears to be a case of first impression in Canada, a Federal Court has confirmed that the title of a literary work cannot function as a registered trade-mark in Canada. This is consistent with the law in the US, but the issue has apparently never come before a court in Canada until earlier [...

Apps: The Legal Side

Posted on August 10, 2009
Applications for mobile devices are in their infancy (think of Hollywood in the 1930s). Apple’s App Store is one year old, barely out of diapers, and in that time customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications. More than 65,000 apps populate the store, and the number of developers is growing by the month...

More Google AdWords

Posted on August 07, 2009
Another day, another lawsuit against Google (Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc., 1:09-cv-00736-GBL-JFA (E.D. Va. complaint filed July 10, 2009)). This lawsuit comes in the wake of recent changes made by Google to its AdWords policy. These changes relaxed the rules relating to the use of trade-marks and permitted the use of trade-marks in ad [...

Canadian Copyright Reform Update

Posted on August 04, 2009
The Canadian government has launched another attempt at reforming the Canadian Copyright Act, to bring it in line with the digital age. The last major overhaul of the legislation occured more than 10 years ago, and since then several attempts to introduce revised legislation were stymied, either by public opposition, or more often, intervening elections (Canada [...

Michael Jackson?s Patent & Trademarks

Posted on July 31, 2009
This month the US Patent and Trademark Office opened an exhibit of Michael Jackson’s patents and trade-marks which is scheduled to run through the summer of 2009. One of Mr. Jackson’s more famous intellectual property assets - besides his songs and brands - is his patented “Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion” (Michael J...

Employer Access to Employee Gripe Site

Posted on July 30, 2009
In the good old days, the boss overheard you complain at the pub after work. Now, employees have more sophisticated methods of dishing the dirt. And employers must walk a careful line when navigating the issue of employee privacy. In Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, Docket No...

Trade-mark Protection: LEE vs L.E.I.

Posted on July 22, 2009
L.E.I. for jeans is arguably confusing with both LEVI’S and LEE, making it a perfect candidate for a trade-mark battle. Lee Canada went to bat to defend its LEE brand in the face of an application for the mark L.E.I. (stylized) for use in association with jeans...

Google AdWords Update

Posted on June 23, 2009
There have been a rash of new lawsuits against Google?s AdWords program including 2 major class-action claims: FPX, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2:2009cv00142 (E.D. Tex. complaint filed May 11, 2009) (Class action); Soaring Helmet Corp. v. Bill Me Inc., 2:2009cv00789 (W...

Update: Business Method Patents

Posted on June 12, 2009
In both Canada and the US, the business method patent is, at the moment, on the run (see our previous post: Business Method Patents Under Review). Business method and software patents have been the subject of fierce debate in the intellectual property community...

Non-Competition & Injunctions

Posted on June 10, 2009
When you buy a business, it is common for the seller to agree to non-competition restrictions. In other words, the seller agrees not to compete against you for a certain period of time afterwards. These clauses are standard, but can be tricky to enforce, as shown in the recent decision in Belron Canada Incorporated v...

Whisky Trade-mark Appeal

Posted on June 08, 2009
In our previous post on The Whisky Caper: Scotch Whisky Association vs. Glenora Distillers, we noted that a Canadian distiller won the right to use the word GLEN in its trade-mark for Canadian whisky, against the objections of the Scotch Whisky Association...

Green With Envy: Trade-marking Colours in Canada

Posted on June 05, 2009
Want to trade-mark the colour green? Just ask the makers of painter’s tape for some pointers. They applied (several times) to register the colour GREEN as a trade-mark for their well-known green painter’s tape, based on use in Canada since 1993...

Canadian iPhone App Dispute

Posted on June 04, 2009
A Montreal company has been hit with a cease-and-desist letter over its launch of an iPhone app that helps users find the city’s “Bixi bikes”. Bixi is the public-use bicycle system in downtown Montreal. Bixi (contrary to some reports) is not a registered trade-mark, though an application for registration has been filed...

Law & Technology: The Facebook Factor

Posted on June 02, 2009
Call it the “Facebook Factor”. The way people use the internet and social media is colliding with litigation in ways that couldn’t have been foreseen even a few years ago: In a recent Nova Scotia case, a judge considered evidence of a plaintiff’s Facebook page in a personal injury lawsuit, and the evidence contradicted the plaintiff’s claim; In [...

Article on Internet Law

Posted on May 29, 2009
Maclean’s magazine (macleans.ca) interviewed Richard Stobbe, lawyer with Brownlee?s Technology & IP Group, for an article on defamation and internet law. The article takes a look at the “dark side” of anonymity on the internet and the state of the law in Canada...

The Risks of Rebranding

Posted on May 26, 2009
Rebranding is supposed to provoke a response, right? Consumer interest? Marketing awards? A trade-mark lawsuit? Brick Brewing Co., an independent Ontario brewery, recently rebranded their Red Baron beer, updating the look with a new label, to the right...

iPhone App Dispute

Posted on May 21, 2009
In the (now notorious) Colorado case of InfoMedia, Inc. v. Air-O-Matic Inc. (Court Case Number: 1:09-cv-00302-ZLW), two makers of rival iPhone applications are in a trade-mark battle over the use of the phrase “Pull My Finger” in association with an application for the mobile device...

ipblog.ca on your BlackBerry or iPhone

Posted on May 19, 2009
ipblog.ca is available on your web browser from your BlackBerry or iPhone. Bookmark the site for updates, articles and business tips on Canadian intellectual property law, trade-marks and internet law in the palm of your hand. Calgary - 10:00 MST

Barbie Clobbers Bratz: Intellectual Property Decision

Posted on May 14, 2009
In the long-running IP battle between Mattel Inc., the makers of Barbie dolls, and MGA Entertainment Inc., the makers of rival Bratz dolls, a California federal court has issued a decision this week that appears to put a nail in the Bratz coffin. The court dismissed MGA’s application to reduce the $100 million damage award granted to Mattel [...

It Takes a (PC) Village? for Copyright Infringement

Posted on May 12, 2009
It was another long battle for Microsoft, this time against a retail chain in Toronto trading under the banner “PC Village”. In April, a Federal Court judge in Microsoft Corporation v. PC Village Co. Ltd. (2009 FC 401) awarded damages of $10,000 per copyright violation for a total of $150,000; plus $50,000 in punitive damages against all defendants jointly and severally; [...

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