Insights

Protecting Confidential Information with the Doctrine of “Inevitable Disclosure”

A recent case from Texas demonstrates how the doctrine of “inevitable disclosure” can prevent departing employees from misappropriating an employer’s trade secrets and other valuable confidential information. In Brink’s Inc. v. Patrick, Case…

Employers, Employees and Confidential Business Information

Recent years have seen an increase in trade secret theft and misappropriation of confidential business information throughout North America. This is probably due to a number of factors, including increased employee mobility,…

Major changes coming to Canadian trademark law

Canada’s Trade-marks Act is about to undergo its most significant amendments since it was first enacted in 1953. Even the spelling of “trade-mark” will change (to “trademark”). Trademark practitioners and their clients should take…

Property in Domain Names: Registration Doesn’t Always Mean Ownership

I recently argued a summary judgment motion on an interesting and somewhat novel issue relating to domain names: can someone other than the registrant of a domain name be its lawful owner…

Between thought and expression

The Ontario Superior Court’s recent decision in Rains v. Molea about allegations of copyright infringement in a series of paintings of crumpled paper, is a fun read for an IP lawyer. And while the context…

Terms of Use and Ownership of User Generated Content

When a photographer “tweets” her photographs on Twitter or a videographer posts his videos on Vimeo or YouTube, the works become available to be used by anyone in the world, right? After…

Cinar v. Robinson: Are Derivative Works Afloat in Murky Copyright Waters?

On February 13, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) heard the appeal of the now (in)famous copyright case of Cinar Corporation et al. v Robinson et al. [Cinar], concerning the infringement of…

The NeighborCity Lawsuits – Scraping the Surface of Copyright in Fact Based Works

Recently, I’ve been following with interest two copyright infringement lawsuits in the U.S. that have been brought by regional MLSs (Multiple Listing Services) against American Home Realty Network, the operator of the…

Domain Name Registration, Passing Off and Trademark Infringement

Registering and using a domain name that is similar to a competitor’s for the sole purpose of redirecting traffic to one’s website is a dirty practice. But like many other internet offenses,…

IP for Small Businesses

Every business, big or small, established or start-up, has intellectual property (IP). Business names, domain names, websites, customer lists, marketing plans are all types of IP. If managed properly, these can become…

Canada’s New Copyright Modernization Act

The new Copyright Modernization Act introduces some very significant changes to copyright law in Canada. Most, but not all of these changes, relate to digital media and the Internet and are intended…

Don’t Overlook the Importance of Confidential Business Information

When it is thought of at all in the context of IP, confidential information is often thought of as things like secret recipes, codes or algorithms – less often as internal business…

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