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.
Tag Archives: Supreme Court of Canada
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.
Is the sildenafil patent invalid?
In a decision released today, Justice Zinn held that the Federal Court had jurisdiction to consider Apotex’s impeachment action and motion for summary judgment and declared Pfizer’s patent on Viagra, Canadian Patent No. 2,163,466 invalid.
Supreme Court on Viagra
In a decision released today, the Supreme Court of Canada found Pfizer’s patent on sildenafil to be invalid for having an insufficient disclosure contrary to s.27(3) of the Patent Act.
Judicial Appointments
The Honourable Michael Manson, a lawyer from Smart & Biggar has been appointed to the Federal Court. Appointments were also made to the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Tax Court, and courts in British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
SCC and private label generics
The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to appeal from Shoppers Drug Mart Inc. v. Ontario (Health and Long-Term Care), 2011 ONCA 830 relating to provincial regulations on pharmacies selling ‘private label’ generic drugs.
Copyright Board and the SCC
Last week, the Copyright Board published a series of orders on pending tariff proceedings relating to satellite radio, ringtones, online music and educational institutions asking the parties to comment on the effect of the Supreme Court’s copyright ‘pentalogy’.
Supreme Court on Copyright
Today, the Supreme Court of Canada released five decisions on copyright considering issues of communications to the public, soundtracks, and music previewing, all arising from the Copyright Board.
In ESA v. SOCAN, 2012 SCC 34, a majority held that a musical work contained in a video game downloaded over the Internet was not a ‘communication’ and in Rogers v. SOCAN, 2012 SCC 35 that streaming works to requesting members of the public was a ‘communication to the public’ after considering issues of technological neutrality. In Re:Sound v. Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada, 2012 SCC 38, the court held that “sound recording” excludes soundtracks of cinematographic works.
The court considered fair dealing in SOCAN v. Bell Canada, 2012 SCC 36 and Alberta (Education) v. Access Copyright, 2012 SCC 37. In Bell, the court found that music previewing was fair dealing and in Access Copyright, a majority found photocopies by teachers to be fair dealing.
Copyright at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Canada will release decisions on the 5 pending copyright proceedings on Thursday morning. The proceedings were taken under reserve last December and raise issues of communications to the public, previewing music, music in online games, educational fair dealing, and music in soundtracks.
Judges on the move
Judges were appointed today to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Quebec Court of Appeal, the B.C. Court of Appeal, the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench, the Superior Court of Quebec, and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In other judicial news, former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie has announced that he is joining Lenczner Slaght.