Author: Amy Tang

About Amy Tang

Amy Tang is an associate with the Intellectual Property group. She advises and represents clients in connection with intellectual property disputes and drafts proceedings related to copyright, trademark, patent and trade secrets.

Canada, Copyrights

Foreign Certificate of Registrations of Copyright may not suffice to prove ownership of copyright in Canada

Copyright sign cut-out on an urban background.

Proving chain of title to a work is essential for any party wishing to assert copyright infringement. However, this is not always easy, given that the author of the work is not required to register its copyright to acquire the protection by copyright law, provided that the author is Canadian or a citizen of any of the signatory countries to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of September 9, 1886.[1] Further, in any civil proceeding in which a defendant puts in issue either the existence of copyright or the title of the plaintiff to it, the author shall be presumed to be the owner of the copyright unless the contrary is proven.[2] Given that copyright exists from the moment the original work is created and that the title of ownership may easily be passed around since its existence, it is important to keep a robust documentation of the chain of title of a work.

Continue reading »
Analysis, Canada, Europe, Trademark

Sights and Smells: a New World of Senses in the Field of Non-traditional Trademarks

Introduction

The revised Trademarks Act came into force on June 17, 2019 and brought new waves of changes to the trademark legal landscape in Canada. The Act is now more harmonized with international practices and standard procedures of trademark law by adhering to international treaties and implementing the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice classification) and the Madrid Protocol for trademark applications with the World Intellectual Property Association, allowing access to more than 100 jurisdictions worldwide in a single application.

Non-Traditional Trademarks

To align Canadian trademark law with international standards, the revised Act now recognizes new non-traditional trademark signs, such as colours, three-dimensional shapes, holograms, moving images, modes of packaging goods, sounds, scents, tastes, textures and the positioning of a sign. This amendment opens the door for businesses in the Canadian market to let creativity run free and protect innovative forms of marketing.

Continue reading »