An is a work whose rightsholder is difficult or impossible to locate. This problem affects two categories of people: users and rightsholders. Users, who intend to use a work whose rightsholder is unlocatable, must conduct an exhaustive search for the rightsholder, apply to a copyright board for a licence to use the work, or use the work without permission. And, rightsholders, whose copyright protected work is used without authorization, may be forced to sue or forgo recognition of their intellectual property. As the issues surrounding the use of orphan works tangentially affects many stakeholders, a diverse group of people with different backgrounds were invited to participate in the hackathon. This group included: lawyers, policy makers, judges, law students, software engineers, film directors, archivists, librarians, andĚýprivate license issuers.

Under the leadership of IP Osgoode's founder and director, Prof. Giuseppina D'Agostino, and Margaret Hagan, a fellow from Stanford University's , the process was used to corral the diverse set of participants. Design thinking aimed to focus everyone's energy onĚýachieving the hackathon’s end goal—the creation of a new model of licensing orphan works—despite the group's seemingly divergent backgrounds, concerns, and approaches to problem-solving. In the design thinking process an out-of-the-box idea can spark a radical change, potentially leading to a greater quantity of unique solutions. It was therefore a rule that all ideas proposed were to be considered.

The participants were split into teams and tasked with creating a prototype. My team was comprised of an archivist, two computer programmers-turned law students, the director of a private licence issuing company, and two upper-year law students. Each individual brought a unique perspective and skill-set to the table. Because coders, archivists, private licensors and law students metaphorically speak different languages, we had to reframe the orphan works problem into plain language that we could all understand. To translate the problem into a universal language, our team employed visual aids, analogies, and definitions. The “anything goes” rule of design thinking boosted our initial meeting, as everyone felt free to ask any clarifying questions.

To facilitate prototyping, we were shown existing solutions in other jurisdictions. Representatives from the Copyright Board of Canada, the Intellectual Property Office and the Copyright Office presented the orphan works regime in their respective jurisdictions. After hearing their presentations, my teammates and I realized that our solution needed to incentivize rightsholders to register their creations and also incentivize users to obtain a license for the use of copyright protected works. In the end, our prototype was a simple registration/licence application process where rightsholders and users couldĚýfollow a series of simple steps. It incorporated some aspects from the UK Intellectual Property Office and was not confined to just Canada because it included the copyright registries of countries around the world.

Orphan works present a complicated problem: users can either forgo the use of a work or use it and potentially suffer consequences while rightsholders struggle to have their rights respected. Simplifying and reframing complex problems can lead to simple solutions with broad applicability. The IP Osgoode Orphan Works hackathon may prove to be an ideal model for future hackathons and large-scale problem solving.

Quin Gilbert-Walters is an IPilogue Editor, a JD Candiate at Osgoode Hall Law School, and a Winkler Institute Research Assistant.

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Participants, who were divided into groups of approximately seven people, engaged in a step-by-step process of designing solutions to improve the Canadian patent system’s navigability for inventors. The first day started by interviewing users of the patent system about their experiences with it. Each group then synthesized a Design Brief identifying the users’ main need in the patent application process and the reason for the need’s existence. Almost every group identified lack of easily accessible, easy-to-understand information from a reliable source as the main challenge to users. In addition, inventors expressed frustration at the unavailability of tools that would enable them to use the system without incurring significant costs, such as an efficient prior art search engine or templates for drafting patent applications. Admittedly, these needs may not have been entirely reflective of inventors in general, as the majority of the inventors who attended the Hackathon were operators of start-up companies. However, since these users have particularly limited resources, the challenges they face are especially important to address.

After identifying user needs, the teams brainstormed solutions to these needs and created a first prototype of the preferred solution. These prototypes were tested on the second day of the Hackathon by having two to three inventors experience them and provide feedback to the teams. After the groups modified their designs based on the inventors’ recommendations, they received further design and system review of their prototypes from User Interface and User Experience Designers. These experts’ input was particularly helpful for creating easy-to-grasp information without compromising the quality of the content.

At the Hackathon’s conclusion, the groups presented the revised prototypes of their solution and described the steps to be taken to further their projects. The designs presented by the participants were diverse and creative. One group devised a wizard that would assist inventors in drafting a patent application. Another group envisioned an app that would allow users to track the progress of their patent application. If the idea was feasible, the group encouraged Osgoode students to take on this project and create a commercial product. A third group produced a short educational video on intellectual property, supplemented by a questionnaire to help inventors assess what intellectual property rights may apply to their invention. The last group (to which I was assigned) designed an easily navigable website where users could obtain basic information about their IP rights and the various resources to help them manage these rights, from commercialization to defending an infringement action.

The Hackathon was an unparalleled opportunity to address some of the shortcomings of the current patent system in Canada. Because of the active participation of the system’s users in every stage of the design process, their needs could be adequately assessed and addressed. Moreover, the event facilitated communication between different stakeholders, so that each contributed their perspective and experience. The participation of CIPO representatives was particularly encouraging, as it demonstrated CIPO’s willingness to work towards improving the system that it administers.

The focus on innovation and its interaction with the patent system was a prominent theme of the Hackathon, as the objective of the event was to improve the patent system to encourage inventors to seek its protection. Participants had an opportunity to learn more about entrepreneurship and inventorship by speaking to the inventors about their experiences and from the talk delivered by Bill Mantel, Assistant Deputy Minister of Research and Innovation Ontario. Moreover, the design principles applied at the Hackathon were very similar to the typical process of innovation, whereby inventors identify a customer need, create solutions to address the need and test it against the user to assess the demand for their idea and market viability.

Overall, the Hackathon fostered a spirit of collaboration and started a frank, user-centric conversation about improvements to our patent system. Hopefully IP Osgoode will continue this important dialogue by organizing similar events in the future.

Ěý

Anya LavrovĚýis a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and is enrolled in Osgoode’s Intellectual Property Law Intensive Program. As part of the program requirements, students were asked to write a blog on a topic of their choice.

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On October 23 and 24^th IP Osgoode along with partners and collaborators at the , , and the hosted the first ever legal hackathon of its kind at Osgoode Hall Law School.Ěý The focus of the hackathon was to deconstruct the unnecessarily complex status quo patent system and make the patenting process more navigable and user friendly. In order to achieve this goal, Professor D’Agostino radicalized collaboration within the IP community by inviting the different stakeholders in the patent process, such as patent examiners, patent agents, IP experts in industry, inventors, lawyers, patent agents and law students to participate in this first ever IP Hackathon. The IP Hackathon was also the result of Professor D’Agostino’s research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Dean Sossin kicked off the event with a warm welcome: “…Legal hackathons are rapidly evolving platforms to bring together people from multiple disciplines and thus create problem-solving tools to empower and enable its users. This event also celebrates the novelty of our law school’s highly acclaimed scholarship…Professor D’Agostino has added a new flavour to our robust experiential learning through this event.”

Inspired by her sabbatical time at Stanford University, Professor D’Agostino highlighted the importance of legal hackathons vis-à-vis conventional academic conferences: “It is high time for the legal community to learn from outside its field and adopt a user-centric approach because its voice is critical to understand how problems are defined and resolved.”

The Honourable Assistant Deputy Minister Bill Mantel was the luncheon keynote speaker and spoke of the government’s initiatives to spur innovation.

Dean Kozinski, the founding Dean of the Lassonde School of Engineering applauded IP Osgoode’s initiative to host an IP Hackathon that brought together law and technology like never before. Appropriately, kicking off the prototype-testing day of the event he said “...Lassonde School is motivated to produce Renaissance Engineers through its BEST Program which fosters innovative minds to create and commercialize technology. IP Osgoode’s legal hackathon is a unique opportunity for my students at Lassonde to work closely with their legal colleagues…”

Along with Professor D’Agostino, legal tech scholars from the d.school - Institute of Design at Stanford University, namely, , , and , were the design hosts for the event. Together they led the four teams of hackers through the to hack into the status quo patent system and resolve user challenges. Because the design approach is user-centric, the hackers had a chance to interviews inventors and consider the needs of the inventors – user testing and continuous feedback from the inventors to the hackers formed the cornerstone of the workshop. The hackers also had the opportunity to consult with professional design developers on the usability of their prototypes and refine their prototypes. The outcome was four sets of different user-friendly prototypes with high potential for real life applications.Ěý In keeping with the objective of putting words into actions, each group also presented an action plan on how to advance and launch their prototype.

Professor D’Agostino plans to build upon the success of the IP Hackathon and host subsequent IP hackathons in the very near future to tackle other aspects of IP commercialization.Ěý The conversation and ideas will continue to flourish so please stay in the loop by visiting and subscribing to the IPIGRAM, IP Osgoode’s weekly e-newsletter.

Meenakshi Lakhanpal is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School and is enrolled in Osgoode’s Intellectual Property Law Intensive Program.

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Events

IP Osgoode Speaks Series

We have four very exciting guest speakers visiting Osgoode this fall to give a talk as part of the IP Osgoode Speaks Series. They are as follows:

Prof. Graeme B. Dinwoodie (Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC), University of Oxford) on "Territoriality of Trade Marks in a Post-National Era"
Date & Time: September 18, 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Location: Osgoode Hall Law School, room 1006
Event Code: Dinwoodie
RSVP

Dr. Emily Hudson (Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre (OIPRC), University of Oxford)
Date & Time: September 29, 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Location: Osgoode Hall Law School, room 1006
Event Code: Hudson
RSVP

Prof. Jane Ginsburg (Kernochan Centre for Law, Media & the Arts, Columbia University School of Law) on "The Supreme Court's Aereodecision and the U.S.' international obligation to implement the 'making available right': Are we there yet?".
Date & Time: October 6, 2014, 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Location: Osgoode Hall Law School, room 1003
Event Code: JaneGinsburg
RSVP

The Honourable Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada
Date & Time: November 24, 2014, 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Location: Osgoode Hall Law School, room 1006
Event Code: Rothstein2014
RSVP

IP Hackathon

It is our great pleasure to announce that IP Osgoode, Stanford Law School, d.school: Institute of Design at Stanford, the BEST Program - Lassonde School of Engineering, and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office are hosting the first ever IP Hackathon entitled “Navigating Patent Applications – An Exercise in Legal Innovation”.

The IP Hackathon will be held on October 23 – 24, from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, at Osgoode Hall Law School. During this 2-day hackathon, a variety of stakeholders in the patent process will collaborate in small groups to create viable new ideas for redesigning the patent process. Guided by the structure of the human-centered design process, the participants will use their expertise & creativity to generate new solutions for making patent law more usable and user-friendly. This event is by invitation only but if you would like to participate in the hackathon or would like to learn more about this event, please email IP Osgoode at iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca.

IP Intensive

Each year we try to build upon what we accomplished in previous years of the and offer our students an even more enriched and engaging experience. For the Fall 2014 term, we have partnered with two new placement organizations: AstraZeneca Canada Inc. and Cineplex Entertainment. We are pleased to welcome our returning placement organizations from last year: Canadian Heritage, Industry Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada, SOCAN, Stanford Center for Legal Informatics (CodeX) at Stanford University, The Globe and Mail, ventureLAB, TEVA Canada Limited, and TVO.

The IP Intensive is a unique program that gives students practical, experiential education in a workplace setting for an entire term in lieu of being in the classroom. Our students gain valuable practical experience which will assist them in obtaining employment after law school, and some of our students’ research in the program has been published in the Intellectual Property Journal (IPJ).

The IP Intensive Program kicks off the first two weeks in September with class seminars featuring experts from the IP community. The seminars will cover a wide variety of topics, from “Collective Copyright Administration” to “Intellectual Property Reform Process”, from “IP Litigation & Remedies” to “Effective Protection of Innovation through an International Patent Strategy”, to name just a few. Some of the experts our IP Intensive students will be interacting and engaging in stimulating discussions with are: a Supreme Court of Canada judge, a Federal Court judge, the CEO of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, the Chair of the Trade-marks Opposition Board, the Director of the Copyright & International Trade Policy Branch at Canadian Heritage, a U.S. lP litigation expert, in-house counsels and top executives from a broad range of industries, and practitioners from major Canadian law firms.

I am happy to be sharing the co-directorship of the IP Intensive program this year with the esteemed Professor . Throughout the term, Professor Vaver and I will be meeting with the students periodically to discuss topics relating to intellectual property law, to share their experiences in the work environment, and to participate in a cross-pollination of ideas. The students will also be maintaining a reflective journal and blog about their internship experiences. The students’ blogs will be posted on the IPilogue. The students are also responsible for leading their own seminar presentations during the last week of November, and will then wrap up the course by submitting a major research paper.

If you are interested in attending any of our sessions or participating as a placement organization, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly.

IPilogue

Our IPilogue is one of Canada's leading IP Blogs with an enthusiastic international following. To date, we have published over 1,840 original posts and 1,280 comments.

We will be issuing a call for Student IPilogue Editors from Osgoode as well as from universities across Canada and worldwide for the new academic year. Please look out for our call for applications on our website.

In order to keep abreast of the latest in IP and technology in Canada and around the world, and to learn more about IP Osgoode’s events and activities, please do to the IPIGRAM.

IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic

The is now in its third year of operation. In collaboration with Innovation 91ŃÇÉ« and Torys LLP, we continue to expand our client base and provide our students with a valuable and unique experiential learning opportunity. We will be putting out a call for clinic fellows for the 2014-2015 academic term. Please look for our call for applications on the IP Osgoode website.

Our Writing Competitions

Gowlings Best Blog in IP Law & Technology Prize

Each year, through the sponsorship of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, four Gowlings Best Blog in IP Law and Technology prizes are awarded to full-time Osgoode students. The recipients for the 2013-2014 academic year were on the IP Osgoode website.

Canada’s IP Writing Challenge

IP Osgoode together with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) runs e in order to further enhance intellectual property public policy research and discussion. This competition is open to three categories of entrants: JD students, LLM and PhD students, and practitioners.

The deadline for entrants to submit their articles was July 1, 2014. We thank all those who participated in the Writing Challenge. We are grateful to Professor David Vaver, Professor Ikechi Mgbeoji, and Justice Hughes for agreeing to judge the articles again this year. The winners of this year’s competition will be announced on the IP Osgoode website by October 31, 2014.

IP Osgoode is grateful for the support and contributions of our founding sponsors (Gowlings, Cassels Brock, and McCarthy Tétrault), Advisory Board, Osgoode’s Dean Lorne Sossin and his team, our IP professors and our wider team of International Advisory Council members and Research Affiliates, and of course our students who write for the IPilogue and volunteer so much of their time to our activities.

Giuseppina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, the IP Intensive Program, and the IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the IPilogue, the Deputy Editor of the Intellectual Property Journal, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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