Now, Why Didn’t I Think of That?

Toronto based firm i4i, Inc. has been getting a fair bit of press lately as the tiny firm that took on Microsoft Corp. and succeeded in winning an injunction against sales of certain versions of Microsoft Word software in the United States as well as a US$290-million award for damages, willful infringement and prejudgment interest. […]

The Globe and Mail reports today that the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) quietly applied to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for trade-mark rights to the phrase “with glowing hearts” which is part of the well-known refrain in our national anthem O Canada: “With glowing hearts we see thee rise, the true North strong and […]

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Report on Business, entitled As patent cases clog courts, drugs are a lawyer’s best friend, which describes how the Federal Court of Canada judges are swamped with a rising tide of complex patent litigation and how law firms are scrambling for talent to keep up with one of […]

CBC News reports that Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is defending his decision to send lawyers after blogger Dave Cournoyer who owns the domain name edstelmach.ca (note: that domain previously redirected to his blog daveberta.ca, now redirects to a wikipedia entry).

Reading the blog, it seems like Mr. Cournoyer is not willing to comply with the demand […]

It’s not often that I come across news about Canadian trade-mark assets being sold, so I was intrigued when I saw the headline Electrohome completes the sale of the corporation’s trade-marks on CNW Group’s new releases.

Electrohome Limited announced that, effective yesterday, it completed the sale of its trademarks to SYNNEX Canada Limited; which was previously […]

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) release a warning yesterday, noting that it has been made aware of companies offering alternative methods of protecting inventions. CIPO recommends that inventors contact a registered patent agent for advice.

Hmmm, sounds familiar. See here, and also here, about my previous blog entries regarding invention promotion firms.

See also […]

See the Globe & Mail’s recent article about why copyright is cool and sexy.

For something that’s still mostly speculation (both Michael and Howard acknowledge not yet having seen the actual contents of the upcoming copyright reform Bill), there has a remarkable outpouring of interest from numerous individuals on the issue of Canadian copyright reform, not the least of which is:

The Facebook group Fair Copyright for Canada which now […]

Back a couple of years ago I blogged about how Canadian industrial design registrations were made publicly available through the launch of CIPO’s (then) new Canadian Industrial Designs Database. At that time over 10,000 Canadian industrial designs were made public through this new database (i.e. those registered as of June 15, 2002).

Now CIPO […]

In addition to my periodic postings about fun trade-marks, I thought it might also be amusing to see what new trade-mark oppositions are being filed.

Looking back through CIPO’s database for the last couple of weeks, I note the following interesting new oppositions and proposed oppositions:

FACEBOX - 1,316,122, by Incrowd […]

This week’s (pdf) and last week’s (pdf) Trade-marks Journal had a number of amusing trade-mark applications advertised:

NAKED MINERALS - 1,336,605, by Yem Inc. for cosmetics and mineral make-up that, according to their website, is so light and comfortable a wearer won’t know she/he is wearing it and will […]

There hasn’t been a new posting on CopyrightWatch.ca for a while now, but they sure cracked me up with their posting just a bit ago Truth in trademarking.

Luckily, the Olympic and Paralypic Marks Act is not yet in force (as far as I’m aware), so I think we’re still safe to refer to […]

PATSCAN’s Bizarre Patent Calendar for 2008 (pdf) is now available.

I like the entry for December (i.e. US 6,490,999) for a leash and collar combination to walk one’s snake. It even includes a feature for reducing the snake’s concertina movement through the collar

For more details on this particular invention, see the inventor’s website at […]

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has recently added features to the online patent database.

CIPO states that the new features include:

Highlighted search term: terms defined in the original query will be highlighted on document detail pages.
Improved navigation: search results pages are now numbered for easier access to specific pages.
Toggle between languages: Switching from English […]

Recently, Nicholas Weston, Lawyers & Trade Marks Attorneys, celebrated the launch of the Australian Trade Marks Law Blog.

According to their About page, Nicholas Weston is an unstuffy Australian law firm delivering trade marks and other commercial legal services to clients worldwide.

I’ve added their RSS feed to my newsreader and I’ll be following their […]