Aritzia is facing an interesting new copyright infringement lawsuit, the fast growing fashion chain is being accused of “improperly displaying unauthorized and illegal sculptures” in its stores and thereby infringing Tangle Inc’s exclusive rights in the copyright protected designs. Richard X Zawitz, the owner of Tangle Creations says the retailer placed hot pink sculptures identical […]

Hi everyone, Here is a post for the musicians amongst us. In class we discussed the role of copyright and DJ performance usage of copyrighted materials, and how the market incentive for producers of music to want their music played in clubs may be a major factor in why we don’t commonly see copyright claims […]

Hi everyone , i wanted to share this interesting article with you.  It’s regarding an appeal made by Vetements, a Zurich based Clothing brand to the Trademark Trial and Appeal board to overturn an earlier refusal to register its name for use on apparel and related “online retail store services ”  The appeal’s reason for […]

Throughout our class, I have considered how IP law has and can be used to subjugate certain groups. From women being barred from registering patents to the use of IP to oppress African American and Indigenous groups, minority groups have often been strategically excluded from benefiting from IP laws.[1] Law, IP in particular, has often […]

Why is there such robust innovation in China given that the nation is notorious for piracy and intellectual property infringement?  In Johanna Blakley’s Ted Talk, Lessons From Fashion’s Free Culture, we learned that the fashion industry thrives under a “free culture” system where copying and imitation are accepted. In the same way, there is a […]

Ed Sheeran is being sued for Copyright Infringement claiming he copied his hit song Thinking Out Loud from Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. He is being sued by Heirs of Gaye’s co-writer, Ed Townsend, who argue that Sheeran, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing owe them money for allegedly stealing the song. The trial […]

While I was procrastinating from studying for various exams, I came across a new song by Drake and The Weeknd. As the title of the post suggests, the song was actually AI generated using Drake and The Weeknd vocals. The artist (“Ghostwriter977”) wrote the lyrics, recorded the vocals, and used AI to replace their vocals […]

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us that Canadians are multilingual, especially to anyone who has lived in any of the metropolitan cities such as Vancouver or Toronto. According to the last Statistics Canada census, in 2021, 41.2% of people in Canada can conduct a conversation in more than one language and […]

The other night, I got home after class and turned on my Sportsnet Now streaming channel to watch that evening’s broadcast of the Edmonton Oilers game. However, I was instead greeted with a message stating that the game was unavailable due to “regional or national blackout restrictions”. Given that I am a rational adult, I […]

What is CRISPR-Cas9? By weight, there are over 27 times more bacteria than all animals combined.  The most numerous organisms on earth are by far the viruses that utilize these bacteria as hosts, called bacteriophages. As one researcher colourfully put it: there are “approximately a trillion phages for every grain of sand in the world”. […]

Slides & video below… Jon

Hello everyone! I’ve been interested in how IP law applies to virtual reality technology and decided look more into its use in museums and the legal issues that may arise. Professor Festinger, I would like to submit this post as my LAW 422 final paper. Thank you.   ————————————————————————————————- VIRTUAL REALITY IN MUSEUMS AND INTELLECTUAL […]

I stumbled upon this article that reports on a new patent by PlayStation for temperature in their haptic feedback. Controller patents seem to be a huge area where video game and console developers patent technology. There have been massive innovations in controller tech over the decades, and it’s always interesting to see what will come […]

Hello, everyone. I was going through some of the previous posts on the website and was intrigued by the MSCHF in Law post. It led me down a footwear spiral and I also came across this case where the Federal Court of Canada in Crocs Canada, Inc. and Crocs Inc. v. Double Diamond Distribution Ltd. […]

Slides & video below… Jon