Microsoft Defends Patent-Licensing Strategy

Amidst the flurry of patent cases among the lot of mobile technology companies, it is difficult to keep track of who is bringing whom to court. In light of the sheer number of cases and their ever growing international scope, even the use of flow charts cannot fully rescue our collectively boggled minds from the convoluted and fast evolving relationships of these entities. On this basis alone, many would say that without a serious overhaul, the patent system risks completely stymieing its objective of fostering innovation – at least in the mobile business where companies appear more preoccupied by legal disputes than research and development.

According to Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutiérrez, however, such legal wrangling is an expected consequence following the introduction of any new and disruptive technology. Read the rest of this entry »

SCC Judgement: Hyperlinking to Content Does Not Constitute Republication

Last Wednesday (October 19th, 2011), the Supreme Court of Canada released its judgement on Crookes v. Newton (2011 SCC 47). The case focused on whether or not liability existed when one post hyperlinks to allegedly defamatory material on the internet. The court’s decision was succinctly summarized by Justice Abella, who stated, “I would conclude that a hyperlink, by itself, should never be seen as “publication” of the content to which it refers.”  Read the rest of this entry »

2011 Cloud Computing Conference Live Webcast

Watch the live webcast of the Fall 2011 Cloud Computing Conference: Law and Policy Issues in the Cloud here. The Conference begins at 9:00 am Friday, October 14, and ends at 5:00 pm the same day.

Federal Government Introduces New Copyright Reform Bill

Last week the Canadian federal government introduced Bill C-11, entitled An Act to Amend the Copyright Act. Since 2005, there had been three failed attempts at copyright reforms by the federal government. The last such attempt was Bill C-32 introduced in June 2010 during the last parliament, which died on the order paper when the federal election was called last spring. The new Bill C-11 is identical to Bill C-32. The following are some of the highlights from the bill: 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 »

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 »

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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Peanuts and Ponies and Parodies! Oh My!

Generally and theoretically, ‘fair dealing’ in Canada, or ‘fair use’ in the U.S., is meant to foster creativity and innovation, to be a limitation and exception to the copyright holder’s exclusive rights. When it comes to applying fair dealing/use to parodies, however, the exception becomes murky.

A Tumblr blog, “Peanutweeter”, used to have thousands of people following their juxtaposition of classic “Peanuts” cartoons with unrelated, and less innocent, tweets. Unamused, Iconix Brand Group, joint copyright holders with the heirs of creator Charles Schulz, claimed copyright infringement, issued a takedown order and the blog was shut down in June. Read the rest of this entry »

CRTC’s Net Neutrality Regulation: Superficial

Enforcement has always been the bane of any regulatory agency’s existence. Regulation without teeth hardly merits real attention, or compliance, from those being regulated. In documents released on Friday, Professor Geist of the University of Ottawa, has found the CRTC’s well-publicised Telecom Regulatory Policy (2009), policy which is supposed to regulate net neutrality in Canada, to be rather, well, toothless.   Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft’s Censorship Search Deal with China

On the day America celebrated its independence, Microsoft announced its growing presence in the Chinese market for online searches with a deal with Baidu, China’s leading search engine: Microsoft will supply search results for English-language queries on the Chinese search provider. More controversially, Microsoft will also censor its search results according to local law.  Read the rest of this entry »