Copyright & Social Media
Communications Law
Scope of Official Mark Protection (and application of s. 12(1)(e))
The Federal Court Takes a Hard Look At Scope of Protection Available to An Official Mark This article stood out to me today after going through last week’s material on trademarks, especially since it has to do with the “controversial” category – official marks! As the article states, a mark that solely consists of an […]
Patent Troll Awarded $2.2 Billion Against Intel
Hey everyone, I came across this story and thought it would be interesting to share with everyone. The gist of it is that a company whose only business is buying old patents and prosecuting claimed infringements of them sued Intel for a cumulative $11 billion and this week a jury in Texas deliberated on two […]
Should big pharma be allowed to keep their COVID vaccines patented?
https://www.businessinsider.com/vaccine-patents-ips-monopoly-vaccination-process-us-biden-africa-2021-2 There is a really interesting debate happening right now about whether COVID vaccines should have their patents lifted, to allow more production. It is estimated that the current vaccine production is only utilizing 43% of the world’s total vaccine production capabilities. Problematically, only 4% of doses are being administered in the global south (mainly […]
PC v. PC: Pampered Chef Succeeds Once Again in Trademark Infringement Battle: Smart & Biggar prevails in dismissal by Federal Court of Appeal.
Hi everyone, Came across this decision that reminded me of the Taylor Swift Evermore case and our brief discussion around the concept of confusion. Thought it’s pretty relevant since we are looking at passing off and trademark content right now in class. It’s about Loblaw’s private label brand, President’s Choice, with Loblaw alleging that another […]
Reverse Engineering in the Digital Context
Hi everyone, I was wondering about the right to reverse engineer in the digital context and came across the following paper and blog entry via the links provided. I find the paper helpful in getting to know a bit more about the background of reverse engineering in IP. It is claimed that reverse engineering is […]
Proud Boys trademark owner surrenders registration over “toxicity”
Hi everyone, I just wanted to share something I found during a late night Reddit crawl. The owner of the trademark for Proud Boys — now a designated terrorist organization — has reportedly surrendered the organization’s trademark to the USPTO after leaving the group. As the article says, “The use of a trademark is notable […]
Kim Dotcom: Caught on the Web
Hello! This week I watched “Kim Dotcom: Caught on the Web”, a documentary about the founder of MegaUpload – a file-sharing business that profited largely from users illegally downloading music, movies and TV shows. It follows the buildup to his extradition hearing, which was claimed to be the largest copyright case the world has ever […]
Data Copyrighted in Pharmaceutical Sale
Hello everyone! I came across this interesting article today: https://thedeepdive.ca/pharmather-revive-complete-psilocybin-intellectual-property-transaction/ Although IP in the medical / drug setting is nothing new, I found it interesting that part of the IP bought by Revive Therapeutics was data related to getting FDA approval for the use of psilocybin. This reminded me of the issue raised in Geophysical […]
“Facebook blocks users in Australia from sharing news”
Hi Everyone! I’d like to share some recent developments in the European Union and Australia regarding controversial moves to make internet giants pay to post any news media on their platforms. Based on my understanding, in 2019 the European Union overhauled their copyright regime. A strict Copyright Directive was upheld by the courts which sought […]
Distinction Between Methods in AI-Created Art
Hi everyone, This article on AI-generated art reminded me of the class discussion on AIs holding copyright. The article differentiates between two forms of AI art. In the first, the artist feeds specific images to the AI and then choses the best images out of the many that the AI creates. This process involves the […]