Category Archives: Analysis

Analysis, Canada, Copyrights, Trademark

Destruction and Delivery Up: a Year in Review

Copyright and trade-mark owners whose IP is infringed may seek a variety of remedies against the perpetrators, including damages, injunctive relief and legal costs. Psychologically though, destruction and delivery up may provide the most satisfaction. Specifically provided for in the respective statutes,  these remedies allow the successful plaintiff to either compel the infringer to destroy the counterfeit items under oath or actually take possession of them. In this post, we survey destruction and delivery up orders granted and denied in 2019. Overall, the year’s rulings are mixed, demonstrating that even as the victim of infringement, “you can’t always get what you want.”

Luxury Goods

Luxury goods are common targets for counterfeiters, as this year’s crop of destruction and delivery up orders illustrates. Appearing four times before the Federal Court was Nathalie Marie Tobey, aka Nathalie Henrie. Operating out of a clandestine retail establishment on Old Yonge Street, Ms. Tobey was accused of selling counterfeit Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine merchandise.  Her defence was essentially that a well-informed member of the public would not confuse the goods she was selling with the plaintiffs’. Justice Norris dismissed this defence as having “no hope of success whatsoever,” before ordering the delivery up of all goods bearing the plaintiff’s subject trademarks, at least, those not already seized by the Toronto Police Service.

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Analysis, Canada

IP Strategies for the Cannabis Industry

Comment
Cannabis plants

Introduction

Intellectual Property (“IP”) typically provides a significant commercial advantage in the marketplace.  With the legalization of cannabis in Canada in 2018 and increasing competition among cannabis producers, the cannabis industry has been exploring ways to protect its cash crop.  Given that proprietary varieties of cannabis plants are highly valued in the cannabis industry, a lesser known and very specific type of IP right called Plant Breeders’ Rights (“PBR”) may see a rise in prominence.  Cannabis producers would be well advised to consider how PBR can be used to protect their commercially valuable proprietary varieties and supplement their existing IP arsenal.

PBR Eligibility and Scope of Protection

The federal Plant Breeders’ Rights Act enables the protection of a plant variety where that variety is:

  1. new, in that its propagating or harvested material has not been sold by or with the concurrence of the breeder inside or outside Canada within a prescribed time period (either one, four, or six years) before the filing date of the application;
  2. by reason of its identifiable characteristics, it is clearly distinguishable from all varieties whose existence is a matter of common knowledge at the filing date of the application;
  3. stable in its essential characteristics, in that after repeated propagation it remains true to its description; and
  4. having regard to the particular features of its sexual reproduction or vegetative propagation, it is sufficiently homogeneous (i.e. in the event of sexual reproduction or vegetative propagation in substantial quantities, any variations in characteristics are predictable, capable of being described, and commercially acceptable).
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Analysis, Canada, Copyrights

Minority Report: How Canada’s Electoral System Disrupts Copyright Reform

Canadian elections have a tendency to disrupt copyright reform initiatives and the 2019 contest which resulted in a minority Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is no exception.

The trend started in 2005, when the Liberal Government of Prime Minister Paul Martin introduced Bill C-60, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, which was Canada’s first attempt at adopting the comprehensive amendments required to ratify the two WIPO internet treaties that had been negotiated in 1996 and signed by Canada in 1997.

The minority Liberal government was defeated by a vote of no confidence in November 2005, killing Bill C-60.

After the general election in January 2006, the defeated minority Liberal government was replaced by a minority Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Conservatives tabled Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, in June 2008. The bill was substantially similar to the Liberals’ copyright reform legislation.

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Analysis, Canada, Trademark

2019 was “Marked” by Significant Changes to Canada’s Trademarks Legislation

trademark lawyers and attorneys, faksen

After much anticipation, Canada’s new Trademarks Act (the “Act”), came into force on June 17, 2019. The Act introduced significant changes to Canadian trademarks laws which, together with the associated Trademarks Regulations, align Canada’s trademark prosecution and enforcement processes with those of the United States and the European Union, and facilitate Canada’s implementation of international intellectual property treaties.

Some of the key changes under the new Act are outlined below:

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Analysis, Canada, Copyrights

Federal Court rejects controversial copyright litigation strategy

On November 12th, the Federal Court of Canada dismissed a motion for certification of a reverse class action lawsuit that was brought against potentially thousands of Canadiansby Voltage Pictures, LLC, a Canadian film production company (“Voltage”).

Voltage was able to identify thousands of IP addresses that were alleged to have infringed copyright by offering or uploading its films through BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing platform.

In 2016, it brought a motion for an order to certify its application as a respondent class proceeding. The proposed class respondents were all those individuals whose internet accounts had been detected as involved in direct or indirect infringement of its films or offering the copyrighted works for download.

Voltage has already brought 96 of these lawsuits against classes of unnamed defendants in the United States, according to an affidavit which was submitted to the Court. This litigation strategy has often been dubbed “copyright trolling” by its opponents.

A preliminary issue which was raised before the Court was the respondents’ lack of an incentive to defend themselves. This issue was solved through the intervention of the Samuelson-Glushcko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), which submitted strong arguments against certification.

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