Archive for February 2nd, 2009

The Chamber of Commerce’s Counterfeit Claims

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce's IP lobbying arm, the Canadian IP Council (members include CRIA and major pharmaceutical companies), will release a new set of recommendations for Canadian IP reform tomorrow.  Based on their past comments, it is reasonable to expect that the report to claim that Canadian IP law is outdated and that combating counterfeiting and piracy will require WIPO ratification, new criminal provisions, and stronger border measures.  As evidence, the report will claim that a conservative estimate of the costs of Canadian counterfeiting is $22 billion per year.  As discussed last week, notwithstanding opposition from local chapters like Hamilton, the Chamber has emerged as a leading lobby group with regular meetings, the promotion of ACTA, and repeated claims about the scope of Canadian counterfeiting.

While no one should be supportive of counterfeiting, the reality is that there have been numerous arrests in recent weeks, suggesting that Canadian law is not exactly powerless to combat counterfeiting.  Moreover, data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service indicates that Canada is not a major source of counterfeit goods as we did not rank among the top ten sources of seizures in 2008.  Most troubling, however, is the Chamber's consistent reliance on unsubstantiated data that has no credibility. 

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February 2, 2009 3 comments News

Canada’s Do-Not-Call Disaster

Appeared in the Toronto Star on February 2, 2009 as Tough Action Can Reverse Do-Not-Call Disaster When Canada's do-not-call list was launched last September, two outcomes were easy to predict.  The first was that the list would prove enormously popular with millions of phone numbers registered in a matter of […]

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February 2, 2009 2 comments Columns Archive

Canada’s Do-Not-Call Disaster

When Canada's do-not-call list was launched last September, two outcomes were easy to predict.  The first was that the list would prove enormously popular with millions of phone numbers registered in a matter of months.  The second was that Canadians would ultimately be left disappointed with little reduction in unwanted telemarketing calls and concerns about the ability of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications to enforce the law. Four months later, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that the do-not-call list contains roughly six million registered phone numbers and, as expected, there are a growing number of Canadians – including Industry Minister Tony Clement – who are expressing misgivings about the potential for abuse.

The problems associated with the do-not-call list fall into three categories. 

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February 2, 2009 28 comments Columns