News

CRTC Launches Wireless Roaming Fee Task Force

The Globe reports that the CRTC has escalated its investigation into wireless roaming fees by creating a special task force to examine the issue and present regulatory options for consideration by the Commission next month.

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November 1, 2013 Comments are Disabled News

Federal Court Orders Bell to Pay $20,000 in Damages Over Privacy Violation

The Federal Court of Canada has ordered Bell TV to pay $20,000 in damages (plus an additional $1,000 in legal fees) for violating the privacy rights of a Nova Scotia satellite tv customer. The case arose when Bell TV surreptitiously obtained permission to run a credit check by including it […]

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November 1, 2013 11 comments News

Fake Feta: Digging into the Intellectual Property Details of the Canada – EU Trade Agreement

The Canadian government released a technical summary of the Canada – EU trade agreement (CETA) yesterday, which provides further details on the draft agreement (tabling a summary of the treaty is a strange exercise and the government needs to release the full text). Within the summary, there are some further details on the intellectual property issues that were not highlighted in the initial releases.

First, while the emphasis on cheese and the dairy industry has focused on increasing the amount of European cheese that can be sold in Canada, the agreement also contains some notable new restrictions on the sale and marketing of cheese in Canada more generally.  Under the umbrella of geographic indications protections, Canada has agreed to new limitations on several well known cheeses including asiago, feta, fontina, gorgonzola, and munster. Existing Canadian producers can continue to use these names, but that’s it – any future cheese makers will need to qualify the title by using words such as “imitation” or “style”. This is a significant concession that effectively gives rights to existing producers on what many consumers would view as generic names.

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October 30, 2013 6 comments News
The Copyright Pentalogy Book: An Open Access Success Story

The Copyright Pentalogy Book: An Open Access Success Story

Readers of this blog will know that earlier this year the University of Ottawa Press published The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law, an effort by many of Canada’s leading copyright scholars to begin the process of examining the long-term implications […]

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October 25, 2013 2 comments Books, Chapters, News

Bell Claims Users Want to Be Monitored, Profiled and Tracked

The reports that Bell is updating its privacy policy to allow for the use of a wide range of personal data collected from Internet and mobile phone usage has generated enormous public concern, an investigation from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and claims from Bell that its customers want to […]

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October 23, 2013 43 comments News