Tag Archives: Litigation

Federal Court of Appeal releases Amazon.com decision

The Federal Court of Appeal has released its decision in Amazon.com on patentable subject matter (PDF). The Court held that determination of patentable subject matter must be based on a purposive construction of the claims and discussed the requirements for patentability but remanded the application back to the Commissioner for claim construction and reconsideration.
Continue reading Federal Court of Appeal releases Amazon.com decision

Ex parte injunction against author, Google, and GoDaddy for alleged defamation

In Nazerali v. Mitchell, 2011 BCSC 1581, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an interim injunction against the author of an allegedly defamatory website, the hosting company, the domain name registrar (GoDaddy) and Google (for providing a cache of the site) on an ex parte basis. Continue reading Ex parte injunction against author, Google, and GoDaddy for alleged defamation

Site mentioned on Slaw.ca

The blog, Slaw.ca mentioned the IPPractice.ca website today with regard to the Docket Browser feature. As identified by Ted Tjaden, the IPPractice.ca docket browser includes the docket entries, as well as related court decisions, appeals and the patented medicine where it can be identified. Ted Tjaden maintains a list of Canadian courts that maintain online accessible court dockets that would be helpful to anyone monitoring and investigating proceedings in other jurisdictions. Thanks for the mention!

SCC denies leave in “acrimonious” trademark discovery

This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave in Osmose-Penotox Inc. v. Société Laurentide Inc. (SCC #34175), where an appeal was sought from the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision in 2011 FCA 31. The issues in the appeal appear to have been related to the scope of discovery in a bifurcated proceeding. The Federal Court of Appeal had written:

[10] With respect, I think the appellant fails to understand that the respondent’s missing letter to Rona, even if its content was assumed to be most favorable from the perspective of the appellant, is not relevant at the first stage of the proceedings. The determination of the validity of the registration of the appellant’s trade-mark entails a legal determination over which the beliefs of the respondent, whatever the self-serving or even incriminating terms in which they have been expressed in the response letter, carry no influence. The same holds true for the determination of the respondent’s liability should the trade-mark be found to be valid and to have been infringed.

[14] Before concluding, I think it is fair to say that the debate between the parties, which so far has been going on for at least eight years, has been acrimonious. … The parties should understand that the time has now come to move this case to trial without further interruption.

More information about these and other intellectual property proceedings at the Supreme Court are available on my Supreme Court litigation page.