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Category Archives: Canada

Regulation, Generative AI, and legal considerations

October 19, 2023 Adele Ambrose and Gerald (Jay) Kerr-Wilson

With generative AI’s ability to aid knowledge management, increase efficiency and accelerate development there must be balanced consideration of intellectual property (IP) protection and stakeholder interests.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) are algorithms that can be used to generate text and images that are difficult to distinguish from human generated text and images. It is technology that is fed data (trained) to ultimately recognize relationships and patterns in data. The more data the system is fed, the smarter it becomes. Once trained, it then applies that intelligence to information submitted by end users, to produce new content/products such as videos, photos, and book summaries. Generative AI’s use is growing in popularity because it quickly simplifies and completes tasks for the everyday user once given simple instructions.

Analysis, Canada

Modernization Initiatives of the Copyright Board

August 1, 2023 Jay Kerr-Wilson and Riley Mintz

Why Is the Copyright Board Modernizing?

The Copyright Board of Canada (“the Board”) has announced the completion of Phase 1 of its Modernization Initiative that has taken place over the past four years as of May 2023. Following this, the Board released a report providing updates on the Board’s overhaul of its processes, internal policies, and organizational culture including the implementation of new Rules of Practice and Procedure that came into effect on March 1, 2023. Policies like improving efficiency, transparency, and access to justice of legal processes, all aspects of the Board’s initiatives, are often desirable changes in any context but why has the Board been prompted to take on this initiative?

Analysis, Canada, Copyrights, Trademark

Social Media and Copyright: What are the Common Copyright Limitations and Issues Users Face?

December 7, 2022 Kiera Boyd

In a time when online sharing is becoming more and more complicated thanks to an ever increasing number of social media platforms cropping into existence and an equally ever increasing amount of time people are spending online, various copyright issues are bound to arise. Continue reading to learn more about the common Canadian copyright limitations and issues users may face in sharing and living in an online world.

Analysis, Canada, Copyrights, Intellectual property, Patent Prosecution, Trademark

Trademark Owners and Franchisors Beware: in Milano Pizza Ltd. v. 6034799 Canada Inc., Lack of Licensor Control Leads to Invalidation of Trademark

May 17, 2022 Nicolas Charest, Michael Shortt and Brooke Naomi Levy

In its recent Milano Pizza Ltd. v. 6034799 Canada Inc. decision, the Federal Court ordered the expungement of a trademark registration because the plaintiff did not exercise sufficient control over the use of the trademark by its licensees. This decision provides a helpful reminder of the dangers of relying on verbal agreements instead of written trademark licenses, and the need for trademark owners to maintain control over their licensees.

Canada, Patent Prosecution, Patents

Canadian Strategies for New Patent Rule

March 21, 2022 Mark Penner and Alain Leclerc

Upcoming Changes to Canadian Patent Practice Could Mean Increased Costs. Can you take steps now to mitigate?

As part of the implementation of the patent term adjustment (PTA) obligation in the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (“CUSMA”), the Government of Canada proposed a series of amendments to the Canadian Patent Rules to better streamline the patent examination process.

As noted in our earlier blog post, the proposed amendments provided for a request for continued examination requirement and a new notice from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) to applicants named a “conditional notice of allowance”, both of which are designed to streamline the patent examination process.