The Ontario Court issued practice notices regarding motion practice last fall that were recently published online. The first requires, among other things, the moving party to file a Notice of Motion within 10 days after the motion date is requisitioned. The second is an announcement that additional resources are being allocated to long motions.
Justice Scott to FCA
Justice André F.J. Scott has been elevated to the Federal Court of Appeal on Friday to replace Justice Noël. He has been a judge of the Federal Court since 2010. Appointments were also made to the Ontario and Newfoundland courts.
IP Treaties
The government has tabled five intellectual property treaties in the House of Commons:
- Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (“Madrid Protocol”),
- Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (“Singapore”),
- Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (“Nice”),
- Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (“Hague”), and
- the Patent Law Treaty.
Burden of Proof
Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court held that the patentee has the burden of proving infringement when a licensee seeks declaratory judgment, in Medtronic v. Mirowski (PDF), reversing the lower court.
Biologics
In a decision issued today, Justice Hughes considered the breadth of the claims in the first [see update below] biologic patent infringement trial decision of the Federal Court. The patent at issue was found valid and infringed.
Canadian Trademark Firms in 2013
About 50,400 trademark applications were filed in Canada in 2013. Of these, about 20% were filed in-house or without an agent (about the same as in the last couple of years). Gowlings, Smart & Biggar and Bereskin & Parr were the firms that filed the most trademark applications. Check out my list of the 50 firms/agents that filed the most applications in 2013. Continue reading Canadian Trademark Firms in 2013
IP at the USSC
On Friday, the United States Supreme Court granted cert in four IP related proceedings: POM Wonderful v. Coca-Cola – standing under the Lanham Act to challenge labelling; Limelight Networks v. Akamai Technologies – does inducing patent infringement require direct infringement; Nautilus v. Biosig Instruments – standard for indefiniteness in patent claims; and ABC, Inc., v. Aereo, Inc. – copyright infringement and public transmissions over the Internet.
Website outages
The Canadian Patent Office, the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal all have website outages this weekend.
Copyright Curiosity
Earlier today, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Cinar Corporation v. Robinson, 2013 SCC 73. The Court upheld the findings of liability and modified the award of damages, including punitive damages. Some of the issues considered by the Court included determining “substantial part”, the admissibility of expert evidence, disgorgement of profits under the Copyright Act and punitive damages.
Canada Gazette Publication
A series of IP related regulations were published in today’s Canada Gazette (Part II): a) changes to the Patent Rules and Trade-mark Regulations relating to the agent examinations; b) changes to the Patent Rules relating to final actions and c) regulations associated with Canada’s anti-spam legislation. Check the specific regulations for the coming into force dates of each amendment.