Intellectual Property
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March 27, 2024
Facilitating international document verification: Canada ratifies Apostille Convention
Canada’s recent decision to ratify the Apostille Convention marks its significant effort to simplify cross-border and global document verification.
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March 25, 2024
In oppositions onus is on parties to file the right evidence at the right time
The applicant applied to register the trademark Divert NS (the mark) in association with various services related to waste diversion and recycling. The application was based on use of the mark in Canada since at least as early as May 16, 2016. The opponent opposed the application, alleging, among other grounds, that the applicant had not used the mark in Canada since the date claimed in the application contrary to ss. 30(b) of the Trademarks Act (Divert, Inc. v. Resource Recovery Fund Board Inc., 2021 TMOB, 2022 FC 1650.)
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March 21, 2024
Competition Bureau releases paper on AI and competition, seeks feedback
The Competition Bureau is inviting public comment on a discussion paper it released March 20 that explores the potentially profound impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on competition in Canada.
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March 21, 2024
Electoral reform bill targets dark money, foreign interference, deep fakes, other AI misinformation
Ottawa’s proposed overhaul of the Canada Elections Act includes new false and misleading speech offences and administrative monetary penalties (AMPs); new and expanded prohibitions targeting foreign interference and the misuse of AI and deep fakes to fuel disinformation and voter suppression; and new third-party contribution rules the federal government says will “increase transparency and mitigate dark or foreign funds in Canada’s election system.”
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March 21, 2024
Politicization of tribunal appointments worse than that of judicial appointments | Brian Cook
Recent moves by the current government to politicize the process of appointing judges have caused significant concern. The process for appointing adjudicators who sit on Ontario’s adjudicative tribunals is much worse. The government has been criticized for making political appointments to the committee responsible for making judicial appointment recommendations. There is no such committee, and virtually no other form of oversight for appointments to adjudicative tribunals.
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March 20, 2024
Montreal cosmetics firm fined $500,000 for marketing products containing ‘forever chemical’
A Montreal-area cosmetics manufacturer is facing a $500,000 federal fine for marketing cosmetics containing a common silicone polymer classified as a “forever chemical.”
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March 19, 2024
AI: A time to embrace | Connie L. Braun
Recently, I rediscovered Pete Seeger’s song, Turn, Turn, Turn which features the lyrics, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Viewing various performances via YouTube (this one is my favourite), I have found myself considering how a time and place for everything applies in this day and age with so many questions about and distrust of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Of particular note in the lyrics, especially as it relates to the effect AI is having and will continue to have on our lives is,“ A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing.” I am thinking that it is a time to embrace.
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March 19, 2024
Ottawa appeals declaration of constitutional requirement for timely federal judicial appointments
“Stay in your lane” — those words might encapsulate the thrust of the federal government’s message to the Federal Court in Ottawa's appeal of a recent groundbreaking judgment, which declared that the prime minister and federal justice minister are constitutionally obliged to fix the lengthy federal judicial appointment delays that have for years bedeviled litigants, lawyers and judges.
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March 19, 2024
Targeting and infringement by selling goods on the Internet
An essential feature of trademark law is that it provides only territorial protection to the proprietor of a mark in the territory or territories where the mark is registered. But the marketing and sale of goods on the Internet has no territorial boundaries. The website marketing the goods may be viewed by consumers anywhere in the world where there is an Internet signal.
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March 15, 2024
Supreme Court rules limited statutory rights of appeal do not preclude access to judicial review
In a 9-0 judgment supportive of litigants’ access to judicial review, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a limited statutory right of appeal in a case does not preclude judicial review for matters not the subject of appeal, i.e. where there is an appeal right limited to questions of law, judicial review is available for questions of fact or mixed fact and law.