December ← 2010 ← Innovation Law Blog

Google seeks patent for new API

Dec

2010

Google is seeking to patent what slashdot calls “exponential social spamming”. This consists of a set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that Google has dubbed OpenSocial. These APIs will allow developers to just learn one API and then write applications for social network sites like Orkut, LinkedIn, MySpace and so on. As theodp on Slashdot points out, ...

Regulating the internet: 19th century industrial policy rehashed?

Adam Friedlan

Dec

2010

A fairly recent article by James Delong in the AEI Journal provides an interesting perspective on the regulatory dilemmas of the internet age. As it turns out many of the issues faced by prospective regulators of electronic commerce have precedents in the industrial era. These commonalities are not entirely obvious but are quite compelling if ...

US Supreme Court split on parallel import ban

Billy Barnes

Dec

2010

The US Supreme Court released their ruling on Omega v. Costco today, affirming the 9th Circuit ruling in favour of Omega. The case considered whether the first sale rule applied to copyrighted goods manufactured outside the United States (a previous case, Quality King, held that first sale applied to goods manufactured in the US, exported, ...

“Don’t care about copyright? You should” 1

Kathryn May

Dec

2010

A recent article in the Globe and Mail, Barrie McKenna chronicles the many obstacles Canadian copyright reform has undergone in recent years.

Google Search subject to EU anti-trust investigation

Billy Barnes

Dec

2010

The European Union has announced that it has opened a formal investigation into allegations that Google favours its own properties over competing services in search results. When a user searches for something, hotels for example, Google displays prices and reviews from it’s own travel service as the first result while links to other travel sites ...

RIM launches patent suit against Kik Interactive

Matthew Derricott

Dec

2010

As reported in the Globe and Mail, Research in Motion has launched a patent infringement lawsuit against Kik Interactive Ltd. RIM claims that Kik Messanger infringes on their patent for Blackberry Messenger. They claim that Kik’s CEO was previously employed at RIM and after leaving the company “he quickly went about starting his own instant messaging ...

Which way to the Creative Commons? 2

Susan Deefholts

Dec

2010

Let’s begin with a hypothetical: you’re browsing around the web, looking at an e-book site, and you see a section on that site labeled “public domain.” You know that “public domain” means that the copyright has expired and so the book is free. You think “great!” and head over. Once there, however, you discover that ...