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November 25, 2019
Pharmacist in a white lab coat, holding bottles of pharmaceuticals.

Patent Strategy & Potential Changes to Patented Medicine Regulations & Drug Pricing Legislation

The rising cost of patented medicines is an important topic in the United States and Canada. In the United States, the White House is promising to...
February 11, 2015

Receiving Copyrighted Material Considered a Presumptive Connecting Factor in Seismic Data Dispute

Geophysical Service Incorporated v Arcis Seismic Solutions Corp, 2015 ABQB 88 - The Court analogized misuse of confidential information to copyright infringement to decide that the jurisdiction where the copyright-infringing material was received was also significant.
February 5, 2015

Federal Court Reverses Commissioner’s Opinion that Janssen Altered the Prohibition against Patenting of Methods of Medical Treatment

AbbVie Biotechnology Ltd v Canada (Attorney General), 2014 FC 1251 - The core of the Commissioner’s argument was that Janssen Inc v Mylan Pharmaceuticals ULC, 2010 FC 1123, broadened the prohibition against patents on methods of medical treatment to include generally claims which restrict the “how and when” a physician could administer a particular drug. The Court found that the Commissioner had misread Janssen.
February 3, 2015

ONCA Preserves Protection of Discussions between Expert Witnesses and Lawyers

Moore v Getahun, 2015 ONCA 55 - The Court referred to UK authorities that described patent law as an example of a highly technical area where “expert witnesses require a high level of instruction by the lawyers”, supposedly to liken the highly technical area of patent law to the highly technical area of medical malpractice with respect to its reliance on expert evidence.
January 27, 2015

TMOB Removes Investment Advice from Atticus’s List of Services

Atticus Canada Inc v Atticus Management LLC, 2014 TMOB 196 - Evidence of trade-mark use consisting of copies of license agreements allowing Atticus Capital LP to use the Mark was taken to demonstrate use in association with financial services generally, but not in association with investment advice.
January 23, 2015

Patent for using a Short Needle for Intradermal Delivery for Vaccinations Rejected for Obviousness

Commissioner’s Decision # 1371 - The Commissioner refused to grant GlaxoSmithKline’s patent application for an “influenza vaccine formulation for intradermal delivery” due to obviousness since there was always a motivation to use the ID route, but it had always been impractical until the advent of a short needle device.
January 20, 2015

SCOTUS Asks Solicitor General’s Advice on Whether to Hear Google’s Java API Copyright Case

Google, Inc v Oracle America, Inc, 14-410 - This case would put at issue whether Java’s method headers are subject to copyright protection, or whether they are excluded by Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act for being a system or method of operation.
January 13, 2015

Commissioner Finds Non-Invasive Virtual Reality Training System to be Inventive

Commissioner’s Decision # 1372 - The Patent Appeal Board reversed an examiner’s finding of obviousness for Canadian Patent Application No. 2,554,498, which discloses a virtual reality simulator for training users in the skill of welding.
January 8, 2015

Commissioner Approves eBay’s Automated Email Notification Patent

Commissioner’s Decision # 1369 - Two elements of the invention were found to be inventive: (1) the “push” process for keeping status information up-to-date, and (2) the automatic notification system that automatically sends an email message only when a delivery status has changed.
December 23, 2014

Bill C-8 Expands Counterfeit Goods Enforcement and Reworks the Trade-marks Act

Bill C-8 is said to broaden the enforcement measures available to protect copyright and trade-mark rights and to curtail commercial activity in counterfeit goods, and is said to expand the scope of what can be registered as a trade-mark and modernizes the trade-mark application and opposition process. Several definitional changes are also made to key terms in the Trade-marks Act.
December 22, 2014

Industry Canada to Amend PM(NOC) Regulations Respecting Patents Listed for Combination Drugs

The proposed amendments are said to clarify the patent listing requirements as they relate to single medicinal ingredients found in combination drugs and confirm Health Canada’s established practices which, in light of recent Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal decisions, may need to change.
December 19, 2014

Section 52 of Patent Act used to Add Inventors to a Patent after an Omission due to Misunderstanding of Canadian Law

Dr Falk Pharma GMBH v Canada (Commissioner of Patents), 2014 FC 1117 - Pursuant to section 52 of the Patent Act, the Federal Court ordered that the Commissioner of Patents add Peter Gruber to the list of inventors for Canadian Patent No. 2,297,832. Dr. Falk Pharma GMBH, the applicant and owner of the patent, inadvertently omitted Gruber’s name from the list of inventors.
December 18, 2014

NSCA Draws Distinction Between Ordering Patent Assignment and Ordering a Transfer of Interest

Bardsley v Stewart, 2014 NSCA 106 - The Court found that the order was fair as it was merely ordering that Bardsley transfer his interests in the ‘770 Application to the extent possible, thus stopping just short of ordering assignment.
December 12, 2014

UK Court holds email file transfer program is unpatentable subject matter

Lantana Ltd v The Comptroller General of Patents, Design and Trade Marks, [2014] EWCA Civ 1463 - The UK Court rejected a patent on a method of transferring files via email communication for unpatentable subject matter for being no more than a computer program.
November 30, 2014

SCC Recognizes an Organizing Principle of Good Faith in Contract Law and a New Duty of Honest Contractual Performance

Bhasin v Hrynew, 2014 SCC 71 - The Supreme Court of Canada recognized a general organizing principle of good faith that underlies many facets of contract law, and created a new common law duty requiring contracting parties to honestly perform contractual obligations as a manifestation of this organizing principle.
November 29, 2014

UK Supreme Court: Patent Infringement Does Not Support a Defence of Illegality

Les Laboratoires Servier v Apotex Inc, [2014] UKSC 55 - The UK Supreme Court rejected the argument that patent infringement could form the basis for the defence of illegality since patent rights do not give rise to the sort of public interest consideration that underpins the defence of illegality.
November 21, 2014

FCA Dismisses Apotex Appeal to have the Promise Doctrine Extended

Apotex Inc v Pfizer Canada Inc, 2014 FCA 250 - The Court rejected Apotex’s sweeping argument that any given promise in the patent must be construed as overarching to all of the patent’s claims.
November 14, 2014

A Verbal Contract Makes Transpharm Liable for Costs of Patents that Name its CEO as Owner

Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP v Transpharm Canada Inc, 2014 ONSC 5643 - There was no written retainer to explicitly identify the client. However, citing the 10 year period during which Gowlings treated Transpharm as its client and as responsible for the cost of the patent services, the Court concluded that Transpharm verbally retained Gowlings.
November 12, 2014

Ownership of a Patent was Transferred from a Director to the Corporation as if the Director were an Employee

Nature-Control Technologies Inc v Li, 2014 BCSC 1868 - The Court determined that a patent transferred from a director and co-owner of a corporation to the corporation by the implied intention of the parties by importing the analysis that is undertaken when determining if intellectual property impliedly passes from an employee to an employer.
November 8, 2014

Federal Court Denies Co-Inventorship to Marketing Collaborators

Drexan Energy Systems Inc v Canada (Commissioner of Patents), 2014 FC 887 - The Court found that two out of four contributors to the invention could not be added to the list of inventors because their contribution essentially amounted to suggesting desired features of the invention and communicating feedback from potential customers, which did not constitute an inventive contribution.