Post Tagged with: "Intellectual Property"

VANOC Looking for Word Watchdog

Fresh off its legislative success, the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee is now looking for a company to "trawl the Internet, scour the media and be on the lookout for any kind of unauthorized use of protected words and symbols."

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July 24, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

No IP in Canada’s Latest Free Trade Agreement

Digital Copyright picks up on Canada's latest free trade agreement with the EFTA countries.  In sharp contrast to the U.S. approach, a Foreign Affairs release advises that the agreement will not include substantial new obligations on intellectual property.

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June 10, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

G8 Set To Adopt Maximalist IP Agenda

While climate change has dominated the discussion at the G8 meeting in Germany, the summit document includes an ambitious intellectual property agenda.  There is the usual talk linking stronger IP to greater innovation and the prospect of greater international IP cooperation and enforcement (as well as an IPR Task Force), yet also noteworthy is an agenda that responds to WIPO and OECD initiatives. 

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June 7, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

Olympic Marks Bill on the Fast Track

Bill C-47, the government's Olympic marks legislation, has been quietly placed on the fast track.  The very fast track.  With no warning, the bill heads to committee this week with hearings today (Industry Canada, VANOC) and Tuesday (several Olympic athletes and committees, clause by clause).  With clause-by-clause review already on the schedule, the Industry Committee will only conduct a limited review and the bill could head back to the full House of Commons for third and final reading by the end of the week.

I've posted several items about the bill, expressing concern about substantive shortcomings and legislative fairness.  Given the government's determination to fast track this bill, the most that can be done is to suggest some modest reforms to the bill (dropping the bill is out of the question and major surgery is not permitted at this stage).  With that in mind, the Committee should consider recommending at least two changes:

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June 4, 2007 1 comment News

Canada Joins U.S. WTO Complaint Against China

This morning the Canadian government announced that it is joining the U.S. World Trade Organization complaint against China over Chinese intellectual property protection.  Canada will be a "third party" in the complaint, which was launched earlier this month over China's criminal statutes involving commercial-scale copyright infringement. The Department of Foreign […]

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April 25, 2007 4 comments News