Trademark confusion, damages proceedings under the PM(NOC) Regulations and inventive concept were the big issues for 2012 based on an analysis of the reported intellectual property decisions from the Federal Court and Federal Court of the Appeal during the past year. The Supreme Court’s 2006 Mattel decision was the most frequently cited decision.
Proposed Anti-Spam Regulations
Industry Canada has published proposed Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations in Part I of the Canada Gazette for consultation. The regulations follow an earlier round of consultations in 2011 and the CRTC’s regulations and guidelines for Canada’s anti-spam legislation.
Google FTC Investigation
Google has settled an United States FTC investigation by agreeing to not seek injunctions against willing licensees on standard-essential patents that the company had obtained from Motorola. Also in the settlement, the Commission closed its investigation of Google’s online search and advertising business.
Federal Court Website
The Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal websites, e-filing and email services will be inaccessible from noon on Friday, December 21 until noon on Sunday, December 23. The IPPractice email service will not run tomorrow but will operate during the holidays on days when the court registry is open.
TekSavvy BitTorrent litigation
Earlier today, the Federal Court heard Voltage Pictures’ motion for third-party discovery of TekSavvy, an Ontario ISP, in the copyright infringement proceeding against unidentified BitTorrent users. The Court granted TekSavvy’s request to adjourn the motion to January 14, 2013 to allow time for more notices to be sent to affected users.
Federal Court Judges
The Honourable Yvan Roy and The Honourable Cecily Y. Strickland have been appointed to the Federal Court effective today. Justice Roy was a lawyer with the Government of Canada, Privy Council Office, in Ottawa and Justice Strickland was a lawyer with Stewart McKelvey in St. John’s practicing maritime law, environmental law and administrative law.
Pay-for-carriage
The Supreme Court of Canada issued its decision in Reference re Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-167 and Broadcasting Order CRTC 2010-168, 2012 SCC 68. The majority (5-4 split) held that the CRTC’s ‘value-for-signal’ policy empowering private local television stations to negotiate direct compensation for retransmission of signals by cable and satellite companies was ultra vires.
EU Unitary Patent
The European Parliament has passed the EU unitary patent rules. The three packages passed today relate to the unitary patent, the language regime and the unified patent court. The new rules come into force on January 1, 2014 or after thirteen contracting states ratify it, provided that UK, France and Germany are among them.
Eli Lilly Challenges Patent Law
Eli Lilly has filed a “Notice of Intent” to challenge the ‘promise doctrine’ in Canadian patent law through NAFTA. The focus of the statement is on the law of the ‘promise’ of a patent in determining patent validity whether it complies with Canada’s obligations under TRIPs and NAFTA.
Patented Medicine Prices Review Board
New rules on procedure and practice before the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board were published in the Canada Gazette today to codify existing procedures.