Publications
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Further Streamlining of Canadian Patent Examination on the Horizon
Canadian Patent Practice has undergone several changes in recent years, in many cases to fulfill the requirements of various international treaties/agreements, including those of the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). On July 3, 2021, the Canadian (…)
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Steps to a successful venture capital financing round
An entrepreneur who invests time and energy raising the funds necessary to launch a startup, usually from family and friends (love money), will necessarily want their startup to grow exponentially. Achieving exponential growth requires always more capital, and so the entrepreneur will need to find (…)
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Entrepreneurs and Intellectual Property: Avoid These Thirteen Mistakes to Protect Yourself (Part 2 of 3)
In the second entry of this three-part article series, we share with you the next set of intellectual property (IP)–related mistakes (mistakes #6 to #9) that we regularly see with startups. We hope you will find it useful for your business. Please be sure to read our first entry in this series, (…)
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Crypto asset works of art and non-fungible token (NFT) investments: Be careful!
On March 11, 2021, Christie’s auction house made a landmark sale by auctioning off an entirely digital artwork by the artist Beeple, a $69 million transaction in Ether, a cryptocurrency.1 In doing so, the famous auction house put non-fungible tokens (“NFT”), the product of a decentralized (…)
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The Superior Court of Québec rules on de facto spouses and the right to use a residence during legal proceedings
In a judgment handed down on February 16, 2021, in a case involving former de facto spouses, the Superior Court dismissed an interlocutory injunction filed by the plaintiff seeking the eviction of the defendant from what had been their common residence. After having lived together in a de facto (…)
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Accelerated trademark examination – Canada
Good News from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office! CIPO is taking measures to allow expedited examination of trademark applications in the following cases: Upcoming or current court action in Canada; Combating counterfeit products at the Canadian border; Protecting intellectual property (…)
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Entrepreneurs and Intellectual Property: Avoid These Thirteen Mistakes to Protect Yourself (Part 1 of 3)
In this three-part article series, we will share with you the intellectual property (IP)–related mistakes that we regularly see with startups. We hope you will find it useful for your business. Happy reading! Part 1 of 3: Mistakes concerning IP in general Mistake #1: Believing (…)
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Studios and designers: How to protect the intellectual property of your video games?
Behind every video game, there is intellectual property (IP) which is worth protecting to optimize monetisation of the game. As discussed in Studios and designers: Are you sure that you own the intellectual property rights to your video games, the first step for studios and designers is to make sure (…)
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Product advertising in the time of COVID-19: Health Canada and the Competition Bureau are on the lookout for misleading claims
It’s been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and many companies are attempting to market products intended to help consumers deal with the risks associated with COVID-19. Some of the most common examples of such products include face masks, testing devices, hand sanitizers, and (…)
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The Doctrine of File Wrapper Estoppel in Canada: The Court of Appeal Hands Down its Decision
In December 2018, section 53.1 was added to the Patent Act (the “Act”) allowing reference to be made to communications exchanged with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) during the prosecution of an application with respect “[...]to the construction of a claim.” This concept is more (…)
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Artificial intelligence soon to be regulated in Canada?
For the time being, there are no specific laws governing the use of artificial intelligence in Canada. Certainly, the laws on the use of personal information and those that prohibit discrimination still apply, no matter if the technologies involved are so-called artificial intelligence technologies (…)
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Studios and designers: Are you sure that you own the intellectual property rights to your video games?
The year 2020 will have been difficult for the vast majority of industries, and in particular for the arts, entertainment and recreation industry. The video game industry, however, is growing in leaps and bounds. For example, Nintendo and PlayStation have each set record sales for their games (…)
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The Court of Appeal Adds a Few More Shades to Canada’s Grey Market
In Canada, as elsewhere in the world, intellectual property owners have made numerous attempts to control their distribution channels through trademark law, copyright law, or exclusive contracts, without much success. However, in a recent decision (Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd. c. Simms Sigal & (…)