Target Misses the Mark for Interlocutory Injunction: Target Brands Inc. v Fairweather Ltd.

In the newest development in the ongoing trademarks case between Target and Fairweather, Target sought to restrain Fairweather from operating stores in association with the “TARGET” trademark/trade name or a bullseye logo so as to cause confusion with Target’s own business until the trial date late 2012. But Target failed the interlocutory injunction test according to the Federal Court, and the motion was dismissed. Read the rest of this entry »

Google-Motorola Deal: the Patent Portfolio Factor

So we’ve all heard how Google recently bought Motorola for a hefty $12.5 billion on Monday. Aside from the synergies Google gains from end-to-end control, as Google now has hardware, software and service arms to create their mobile products, perhaps just as importantly, Google has also purchased one of the largest patent portfolios of its kind in the mobile industry. Read the rest of this entry »

Domain Name as Personal Property: Tucows.Com Co. v Lojas Renner S.A.

In a landmark decision made last week in Tucows.Com Co. v. Lojas Renner S.A., the Ontario Court of Appeal found that internet domain names qualify as personal property. The dispute was over (Canadian company) Tucow’s right to keep the domain name <renner.com> in the face of (Brazilian company) Renner’s registered trademark “Renner”. The court held for Tucows, deciding that it could bring a claim in Ontario for declaratory relief against Renner on the grounds that a domain name registered to Tucows constituted intangible personal property. Read the rest of this entry »

Crowdsourcing Justice in the London Riots

Following Vancouver’s example in June, social media has once again been enlisted to help identify the rioters and looters of London’s riots last week. Scotland Yard has posted stills from surveillance cameras on their Flickr account, asking for help in identifying suspects. And independent “name-and-shame” sites have also cropped up, including one Tumblr site called “Catch a Looter”. A twist in London’s case, however, is the potential use of face recognition technology, a tool the Vancouver Police Department declined to use in their investigations.  Read the rest of this entry »

Patent Troll Lawyer’s Turn to Pay-Up

We have all heard stories of abusive or extortion-like practices by patent trolls and how they can strike fear in the hearts of independent, start-up companies. But in a refreshing twist, Techdirt recently posted a story about how a patent troll’s lawyer was sanctioned by the Court. In Eon-Net v. Flagstar Bancorp, not only did the U.S.’ Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hold for the alleged patent infringer, they also approved of over $600,000 in sanctions again Eon-Net’s lawyer for filing a spurious lawsuit. Read the rest of this entry »

The Legality of Online Anonymity: Two Cases

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently released two decisions, one last month and one last week, on the issue of online anonymity, tackling that delicate balance between competing privacy interests, the public interest of promoting justice by facilitating the prosecution of defamation and the underlying values of freedom of expression. Read the rest of this entry »

Do the copycat Apple stores in China harm Apple?

News of fake Apple stores in China sparked a media frenzy last month, with calls of massive intellectual property infringement. Of the five fake stores in Kunming, two were shut down, but for lacking official business licenses, not for who they were pretending to be. More interestingly, according to reports, the Apple products sold at these stores were the real deal. That these stores were and are selling real Apple products complicates the question of whether there are legal claims to be had for copyright infringement. Read the rest of this entry »

Ghost Authorship of Medical Articles Considered Fraud

An article published yesterday in PLoS Medicine, and first presented at an event hosted by the CILP, by Professors Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens has been receiving considerable media attention. Titled “Legal Remedies for Medical Ghostwriting: Imposing Fraud Liability on Guest Authors of Ghostwritten Articles“, Stern and Lemmens argue that “guest authorship is a disturbing violation of academic integrity standards, which form the basis of scientific reliability.” They continue, “The false respectability afforded to claims of safety and effectiveness through the use of academic investigators risks undermining the integrity of biomedical research and patient care.”

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Beyond Refusal to Deal: A Cross-Atlantic View of Copyright, Competition and Innovation Policies

Paul-Erik Veel and Professor Ariel Katz have recently released a paper comparing the Competition Law in the European Union and the United States. The abstract:

Conventional wisdom holds that the European Union, through the application of its competition law, has opted to subordinate intellectual property rights in the pursuit of competitive markets to a much greater extent than has the United States. We argue that, at least in the context of copyright protection, this conventional wisdom is false. Read the rest of this entry »