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

IP Osgoode and the IP Innovation Clinic are thrilled to welcome you back on campus for the new school year! After almost 2 full years of completely virtual operations, we look forward to finally seeing our students and colleagues live in person! Here’s a preview of some of the activities you can get involved in over the next 8 months:

“IP Osgoode Speaks Series” is back in person!

Since 2008, we’ve hosted regular IP Osgoode Speaks lectures with guests from industry, academia, and the judiciary (including the Supreme Court of Canada) from Canada and around the world. After over 2 years in lockdown, we are proud to share that the IP Osgoode Speaks Series returned on 31 August 2022, welcoming Dan Bereskin to speak on “Balancing Freedom of Expression with Copyright and Trademark Rights: Art or Science?”

We look forward to hosting Dr. Lior Zemer, Dean of the Harry Radzyner Law School at Reichman University in Israel, in November to discuss “Art and Authorship in Extreme Circumstance: The Case for Nazi Ghettos.” ��

Please stay tuned for more details about ��on our website and by subscribing to our weekly e-Newsletter, the��.��You can also find recordings of our on our website.

IPilogue

���ܰ�����is one of Canada’s leading IP Blogs with an enthusiastic international following. To date,��we have published almost 3000 original posts and over 1400 comments.

The number of visitors to our website and our weekly newsletter () readership continue to grow and span the globe. Our diverse����continued to blog throughout the summer and constitute an important part of IP Osgoode’s team and vision to foster diverse views on intellectual property and technology matters. In order to keep abreast of the latest issues in IP and technology in Canada and around the world, and to learn more about IP Osgoode’s events and activities, please to the IPIGRAM��and follow us on��,��, ���Ի���.

We are����for this academic year. If you are interested in joining the IPilogue Team, please send your cover letter, CV, law school transcripts, and a writing sample to iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca��������Friday 9 September 2022.

We will also continue to accept submissions on a guest basis.��For more information about submitting articles to the IPilogue, click��.

IP Innovation Clinic

Now in its twelfth year of operation, the IP Innovation Clinic continues to complement Osgoode’s rich history of clinical offerings by providing students with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical experience while learning about some common early-stage IP and business-related issues facing under-resourced inventors, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies.

To this end, we����our AI-powered��, a free online service offering IP law information to users and further empowering creators with the tools to protect their IP. We look forward to continue to develop the IP Innovation ChatBot by expanding its knowledge base and making it more accessible, particularly to members of communities traditionally underrepresented in the IP innovation ecosystem. In the meantime,��we encourage you to ask our����as many questions as possible. The more questions it receives, the better it becomes at answering them. You can learn more about it by watching the recording of our launch event��.

�ճ������continues to expand our client base and provide our students with a valuable and unique experiential learning opportunity.��We are currently��for the 2022-2023 academic term. If you are interested, please send your completed application to ipinnovationclinic@osgoode.yorku.ca ������Wednesday 7 September 2022.

To stay up to date with Clinic activities, please follow us on , and .

Oxford International Intellectual Property Law Moot & USPTO National Patent Application Drafting Competition

Following from the momentum of our��third-place finish at last year’s Patent Application Drafting Competition, we will soon host tryouts for this year’s competition, as well as the Oxford International Intellectual Property Law Moot. Look out for our emails and social media posts to learn about how you can get involved in either competition.

Our Writing Competitions

Gowling WLG Best Blog in IP Law & Technology Prize

Each year, through the sponsorship of Gowling WLG, four prizes are awarded to full-time Osgoode students. The recipients for the 2021-2022 academic year were����on the IP Osgoode website.��Eligibility for the����is officially open. All submissions by Osgoode JD students between now and the end of the Winter term will be considered for the prize.

Canada’s IP Writing Challenge

IP Osgoode, together with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC), runs����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 submission deadline is July 1 every year. This year, we received a wide range of entries from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and institutions across Canada. We thank all those who participated in the Writing Challenge. We are grateful to Dan Bereskin, Professor Ikechi Mgbeoji and Justice Roger Hughes for agreeing to judge the articles again this year. Stay tuned, as��we will announce the Challenge winners in late October�����Ի���open our next competition early next year, among various other initiatives.

A community is only as vibrant as its contributors. As we work and live amidst concerns about COVID-19, even while emerging from the lockdowns, we continue to confront complex and challenging debates in intellectual property and related areas of technology.��Please share with us your ideas to enrich our program and to do our part to make a difference during these unprecedented times. Let us know if you would like to get more involved or if you would like to announce any IP & tech-related research projects or activities.

A community is only as strong and vibrant as its members, I welcome your ideas, projects and anything else you would like to see us do at IP Osgoode for more IP and tech fun!

The post Welcome Back to Osgoode! What to Expect from IP Osgoode & the IP Innovation Clinic in the New Year appeared first on IPOsgoode.

It is our great pleasure to provide you all with a sneak preview of what we have planned for the 2021-2022 academic year and encourage you to participate.

IPilogue

Our is one of Canada’s leading IP Blogs with an enthusiastic international following. To date, we have published over 2,600 original posts and 1,400 comments.

The number of visitors to our website and our weekly newsletter () readership continue to grow exponentially and span the globe. Our diverse continued to blog throughout the summer and constitutes to be an important part of IP Osgoode’s team and vision of fostering diverse views on intellectual property and technology matters. 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 to the IPIGRAM and follow us on , , and .

We are for this academic year. If you are interested in joining the IPilogue Team, please send your cover letter, CV, law school transcripts, and a writing sample to iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca by the end of the day today.

We will also continue to accept submissions on a guest basis. For more information about submitting articles to the IPilogue, click .

IP Innovation Clinic

Now in its eleventh year of operation, the IP Innovation Clinic continues to complement Osgoode’s rich history of clinical offerings by providing students with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical experience while learning about some common early-stage IP and business-related issues facing under-resourced inventors, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies.

To this end, we our AI-powered , a free online service offering IP law information to users and further empowering creators with the tools to protect their IP. We look forward to continuing to develop the IP Innovation ChatBot by expanding its knowledge base and making it more accessible, but in the meantime, we encourage you to ask our as many questions as possible. The more questions it receives, the better it becomes at answering them. You can learn more about it by watching the recording of our launch event .

The continues to expand our client base and provide our students with a valuable and unique experiential learning opportunity. We are currently for the 2021-2022 academic term. If you are interested, please send your completed application to iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca by the end of the day today.

Open Research Assistant Positions

Prof. Pina D’Agostino and Prof. David Vaver are hiring , primarily for assistance in copyright law. If you are interested, please send a completed application to iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca by September 10, 2021.

Oxford International Intellectual Property Law Moot & USPTO National Patent Application Drafting Competition

Following from the momentum of our , we will soon host tryouts for this year’s competition, as well as the USPTO National Patent Application Drafting Competition. Look out for our emails and social media posts to learn about how you can get involved in either competition.

IP Intensive

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).

Each year we build upon what we accomplished in previous years in the and offer our students an even more enriched and engaging experience. For the Fall 2021 term, we are proud to have partnered with two new placement organizations: Canadian Heritage (International Trade Branch) and Xanadu Quantum Technologies. We are pleased to welcome our returning placement organizations: Alectra Utilities, AstraZeneca Canada Inc., the Bergeron Entrepreneurs & Science and Technology (BEST) Lab, Canadian Heritage (Broadcast, Copyright and Creative Marketplace Branch), CBC, Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), SOCAN, The Globe and Mail, TEVA Canada Limited, TVO, and ventureLAB.

Professor will be the Director of the IP Intensive program this year. Throughout the term, he will meet with the students 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 blog on the IPilogue and maintain a reflective journal about their internship experiences. The students will be responsible for leading seminar presentations during the last week of November, and ultimately submitting a major research paper.

The IP Intensive Program kicks off with two weeks of class seminars featuring experts from the IP community. The seminars cover a wide variety of topics, from “Collective Copyright Administration” to “Intellectual Property Reform Process”, and from “IP Litigation & Remedies” to “Digital Content Platforms & Broadcasting Industry”, just to name a few. Some of our experts speaking include members of the judiciary, officials from the Government of Canada, Canadian and U.S. IP litigation experts, in-house counsel, top executives from a broad range of industries, and practitioners from major Canadian law firms.

Olha Senyshyn’s Departure and Ashley Moniz’s Welcome

This Fall, we bid a bittersweet farewell to IP Osgoode’s Assistant Director, Olha Senyshyn. Olha has been a valuable member of the IP Osgoode team for the past two years. We will miss her very much and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

We are pleased to share that Ashley Moniz, who joined us this past January, will continue in his role as Assistant Director and succeed Olha. We look forward to continue to work with Ashley as he has already proven to be wonderful addition to our team.

“Bracing for Impact: Webinar Series” continues & “IP Osgoode Speaks Series” Returns

Building on the success of our signature and in our webinar series over the past year, we plan to continue to use our Bracing for Impact: Webinar Series to maintain the dialogue among academic scholars, practitioners, and industry leaders from Canada and around the world, including Israel and the EU. The series of events explores critical issues in emerging technologies, data policy and governance strategies, with a focus on AI, blockchain, privacy, disruptive technology and tech innovation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In collaboration with the Harry Radzyner Law School at the IDC Herzliya in Israel and Microsoft Canada, we have so far hosted 3 events in our Bracing for Impact Webinar Series: “” (22 June 2020), “” (1 December 2020), and “” (28 June 2021), the latter webinar was also hosted in collaboration with Alectra Inc.’s GRE&T Centre and featured the newly-minted Ontario Minister of the Environment, Conservation & Parks, David Piccini. Each webinar took place virtually over Microsoft Teams in the format of a panel discussion featuring scholars from across North America, Europe, and Israel.

You can read more about each of our past events and watch recordings of each webinar on our . We look forward to launching our new Bracing for Impact website very soon, so stay tuned for that!

We also plan to revive our IP Osgoode Speaks Series. Since 2008, we’ve hosted 29 IP Osgoode Speaks lectures with guests from industry, academia, and the judiciary (including the Supreme Court of Canada) from Canada and around the world. We hope to have even more distinguished speakers join us this year.

Please stay tuned for more details on upcoming events by visiting our ��and subscribing to our weekly e-Newsletter, the .��

Our Writing Competitions

Gowling WLG Best Blog in IP Law & Technology Prize

Each year, through the sponsorship of Gowling WLG, four prizes are awarded to full-time Osgoode students. The recipients for the 2020-2021 academic year were on the IP Osgoode website. Eligibility for the opens today. All submissions by Osgoode JD students between now and the end of the Winter term will be considered for the prize.

Canada’s IP Writing Challenge

IP Osgoode, together with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC), runs 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 submission deadline is July 1 every year. This year, we received a wide range of entries from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and institutions across Canada.�� We thank all those who participated in the Writing Challenge. We are grateful to Dan Bereskin, Professor Ikechi Mgbeoji and Justice Roger Hughes for agreeing to judge the articles again this year. Stay tuned, as we will announce the Challenge winners in late October and open our next competition early next year, among various other initiatives.

A community is only as vibrant as its contributors. Given the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, we continue to confront complex and challenging debates in intellectual property and related areas of technology.��Please share with us your ideas to enrich our program and to do our part to make a difference during these unprecedented times. Let us know if you would like to get more involved or if you would like to announce any IP & tech-related research projects or activities.

The post Welcome Back to IP Osgoode: Here's a Sneak Peek at what's to come this year appeared first on IPOsgoode.

The formidable and tireless former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Honourable Mr. Marshall Rothstein, will round off his as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School with an appearance as a guest speaker for the IP Osgoode Speaks Series on November 21, 2016. Mr. Rothstein will also provide a special seminar for the IP Intensive program and a lecture for Prof. Jinyin Li’s Taxation Law class.

It is our pleasure to provide our readership with an overview of what we have planned for the new academic year.

Innovation Clinic

We are excited to announce a new partnership with . Now in its sixth year of operation, IP Osgoode’s continues to complement Osgoode’s rich history of clinical program offerings by providing students with an opportunity to gain hands-on practical experience and learn about some of the common early stage IP and business related issues facing under-resourced inventors, entrepreneurs and start-up companies. With Norton Rose’s extensive expertise in working with start-up companies and their innovative approach and service offerings, including their NRF Innovation Law Clinic, this new partnership will help IP Osgoode grow and expand the services currently being offered by the Innovation Clinic. At the same time, Osgoode students volunteering at the Innovation Clinic will gain invaluable experience and practical knowledge under the mentorship and supervision of a team of high calibre lawyers at Norton Rose.

IP Osgoode would like to thank for her enthusiasm and tireless efforts in helping to bring this new partnership into fruition.

IP Osgoode’s Innovation Clinic would not have been made possible without the foundational support from the Ontario Centres of Excellence and Torys LLP. We would like to take this opportunity to thank and his team, in particular, and for their expertise and supervision of our students for the past five years and last, but not least, for their assistance in making the Innovation Clinic a success.

Through ongoing collaborations with and the , the Innovation Clinic continues to advance innovation and entrepreneurship within 91��ɫ and the local community.

IP Intensive Program

The IP Intensive is a 15-credit (full course load) Intellectual Property Law and Technology Intensive Program that provides students with a comprehensive examination of significant practical aspects of IP and technology law. The IP Intensive begins with two weeks of class seminars featuring experts and practitioners from industry, the judiciary and government agencies. This is followed by 10 weeks of intensive, practical, experiential education on-site at a placement organization. For the fall 2016 term, 11 students will be placed in a 10-week internship with the following organizations: Canadian Heritage, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), Astrazeneca, CBC, SOCAN, Stanford Center for Legal Informatics (CodeX) at Stanford University, The Globe and Mail, ventureLAB, TVO, and new this year, Janssen Inc., a pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson.

We wish our IP Intensive students much success in their placement. To learn more about the IP Intensive, click for a short video presentation about the Program.

IP Osgoode Website

The houses all our communications and information about our programs, events and initiatives. We are excited to announce that we are currently designing a new website and will be launching the new website in January. If you have any ideas on what you would like to see on our new website please do get in touch.

IPilogue

Our IPilogue is one of Canada's leading IP Blogs with an enthusiastic international following. The IPilogue is the first blog of its kind populated with entries by student editors from law schools across Canada and around the world, as well as guest blogs by IP experts, scholars and practitioners.

The blog contains comments and thoughts about current pressing intellectual property, technology, privacy and related legal issues (see the blog at ) and has a wide-ranging following in Canada and internationally from government, industry, academia and from other expert groups and members of the general public.

Many student posts have enabled greater employment opportunities for students, sparked informed debates on various issues, and led to publication in leading journals and a following in a number of law and policy forums.

We have issued a for IPilogue Editor positions. We encourage all law students to apply and join the team.

We continue to solicit articles from leaders in academia, the legal profession and relevant industries to feature on our website. We welcome any ideas for articles or already published articles that we can promote on our website and the IPilogue.

The IPIGRAM

The IPIGRAM is IP Osgoode's weekly e-newsletter. It pulls together our IPilogue posts with events listings, IP in the News and the IP Pick of the Week (which showcases a blog or website, quite often belonging to one of our members). In order to keep abreast of the latest in IP and technology in Canada and around the world, please do subscribe to the IPIGRAM.

IP Moots

Upper year students interested in developing their oral advocacy skills should consider participating in two renowned IP moot competitions, the and the .

IP Osgoode is a proud supporter of both IP moots. We are looking forward to assisting Osgoode’s IP moot teams and would like to wish them much success.

IP Writing Competitions

Each year, through the sponsorship of Gowling WLG, four Gowlings Best Blog in IP Law and Technology prizes are awarded to full-time Osgoode students. The recipients of the prizes for the 2015/2016 academic year were on our website. Osgoode students, including IPilogue Editors, may submit a blog or comment for consideration of the prizes the 2016/2017 academic year.

IP Osgoode and the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) run each year. The aim of the competition is 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. As a reward, the winner in each category will receive a $1,000 gift and their articles considered for publication in the Canadian Intellectual Property Review (CIPR) and the Intellectual Property Journal (IPJ).

The winner of the 2016 edition of the Challenge will be announced on our website by October 31, 2016. Stay tuned for the launch of the 2017 edition of the Challenge.

Events

We continue to make our mark in the legal and public-policy making community with a dynamic and diverse series of events, which includes the IP Osgoode Speaks Series, hackathons, conferences, workshops, panel discussions, book launches and guest lectures.

To receive notices about our upcoming events and initiatives, connect with us through our , IPIGRAM, , , and LinkedIn.

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

The post An Honorary Start to the 2016/2017 Academic Year appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Abraham Drassinower – A theory of copyright based on copyright law

Drassinower proposed��a theory of copyright to��challenge the dominant instrumentalist paradigm, in which copyright’s purpose is to catalyze the creation and dissemination of works of authorship. This theory views the work as an instance of value. Drassinower��criticized��this framework as an inadequate account of why copyright law operates as it does.�� He��was particularly concerned with how a law and economics approach marginalizes the public domain. Accordingly, he set out to construct his theory by examining core principles of copyright doctrine.

The Principle of Originality

A work must cross the originality threshold to merit��copyright protection, and to become what Drassinower termed a ‘copyright citizen’. Value cannot explain copyright's��need for originality. For example: a telephone directory��may hold��greater��value than��a��romantic poem, but it does not��merit��copyright protection. An examination of seminal case law revealed a delineation between the mechanical creation of value and acts of authorship. Drassinower argued such delineation��invites a theory grounded in authorship.

The Principle of Independent Creation

Drassinower examined how copyright law would treat a hypothetical infringement case in which two authors independently wrote identical poems. The author who first wrote the poem (author A) sued the second (author B) for infringement. Not only is B not liable, copyright law��deems her as an��author in her own right. The hypothetical��suggests that novelty is not a part of copyright theory, and led Drassinower��to three further observations:

1. A right is conditioned on the fact that it respects the rights of others.
2. An author does not hold the work as an object of property. If this were so, the defendant’s poem would be seen as an act of conversion. Rather, copyright sees two independent rights over the same work.
3. The fact that two identical works do not infringe each other is because they are independent acts of authorship. The rights protected by copyright are prerogative to support acts of speech; the translation of ideas into expression, not the idea itself.

These observations led��Drassinower to the central tenets of his theory: Works of authorship should be viewed as communicative acts instead of��instances of value. Authors are speakers.

Seen in this way, copyright infringement is the act of disposing of another’s speech in the absence of authorization; what Drassinower called ‘compelled speech’. Any rights over the communicative act must be consistent with the communicative rights of others. For example, copying for the purposes of commentary is lawful because the rights of the author must be consistent with the rights of others to respond. Fair dealing drops out of the author’s mouth as soon as she speaks. This also means that only communicative uses of the work are subject to copyright; hence why merely incidental, technical instances of copying are not infringement.

Commentary and Critiques

Professor Amani began by noting that Drassinower’s book only situated ‘speech’ within broader rights systems at the end of its reasoning, rather than as a foundational piece. She took issue with theory based on the 'work-as-expression’ that neglected to address why, for example, copyrighted speech should be seen as a privileged form of expression over constitutionally protected speech. Adopting Drassinower’s metaphor, she asked, “why is copyright a ‘dual-citizen’ while constitutionally protected speech is only a ‘single-citizen’?”

She also addressed Drassinower’s lack of attention to subject matter. As his book focused almost exclusively on literary expression, it did not explore questions concerning artistic works. She argued��that copyright is not only about rights, but also about the subject matter to which those rights attach; a distinction with��political implications. She gave the example of how works created by women were��historically regarded as ‘crafts’, rather than arts, and were��excluded from protection. She wondered how Drassinower’s theory would treat expressions such as folklore, oral traditions, or even non-human works.

According to Professor Craig, Drassinower’s theory failed to take seriously the idea of authorship as communication and created a fundamental contradiction. For her, the idea that an unauthorized copier ‘disposes’ oneself of another’s work actually reinforces the idea of a work as a stable alienable ‘thing’ that can be bought, sold or gifted.

She��critiqued��Drassinower on this point using his infringement hypothetical. She imagined two scenarios: one in which speaker B attributed speaker A, and one in which she did��not.��If no attribution was��given, there is no reason the public would��associate the words with A. Rather than compelled speech, this would be a case of forced silence. If there was��attribution, then B acknowledged A’s authorship. This��is giving, not denying��A the status of author. Even if��B had��spoken before A, Craig found it hard to see how B could be said to have��‘disposed’ of A’s speech. The outcomes in this scenario are either: the responding to, acknowledging of, or silencing of A by B – there is no outcome in which A was compelled to speak.

Craig ultimately conceded that while Drassinower’s theory made sense as a theory of law, it fell short as a theory of communication.

After the presentations, attendees participated��in a wide-ranging discussion that further engaged with the issues raised. While the three speakers may have diverged on some points, they all articulated theoretical visions grounded in the public interest. There is little doubt that such perspectives will play an increasingly important role in the way judges, academics and lawyers think about copyright�� in the future.

Luca Lucarini is an IPilogue Editor and a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

The post IP Osgoode Speaks Series featuring Dr. Abraham Drassinower: What's Wrong with Copying? appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Agar began by expanding on his default indifference stating it is a frequent response to the entitlement displayed by people who often call the show facetiously promising that they would be doing Agar a favour by coming onto his show when in fact it is they who want his help. Agar expressed how this entitlement mentality—which he mused was likely a generational-effect from oft-received consolation trophies— fails to consider the abundant competition for media time.

The rest of Agar’s talk illuminated how to leverage media to overcome intense competition for airtime. He used several examples to differentiate the successful stories from the unsuccessful, starting with the successful: star of Dragon’s Den Kevin O’Leary and his surprising run for Tory leadership, which was as being neck-and-neck with that of Peter MacKay.

According to Agar, the key was not found in this quote often attributed (though unverified) to Theodore Roosevelt: “[n]obody cares how much you know until they know how much you care”; rather, it was found in Agar’s adjustment to that quote: “most people don’t care until they find out what’s in it for them”. To cater to gatekeepers’ interests in order to get a message out, Agar emphasized that brief, efficiently told stories—stories than can be told in one sentence—are most appealing to those gatekeepers not just because it makes their job easy, but because the story will be easily communicable to their audiences.

Further, if a brief one-line summary of an issue provokes more questions, it will be more likely to incite callers, on-air debate, and will be less likely to result in dead-air. Agar’s first example of a powerful description was the lead line: “people living in high-rise buildings in a city have less chance of surviving a heart attack”. This line tells a story entirely but also provokes immediate more questions (such as why?), making it vastly superior to those one sentence stories which do not, like Agar’s example of a botanical fair’s announcement and description.

Agar had advice beyond perfecting the quality of a pitch, also focusing on the importance of the degree of research and knowledge on the proposed subject. He pointed out that getting a message out through the gatekeeper does not guarantee the benefits generally yielded by the broadcast of that message. To illustrate his point, he recounted two disastrous stories of broadcast subjects: one who could not answer questions about her chosen topic (a school trustee who did not know why hypothetical marijuana retailers should not be in close proximity to a school even though LCBOs can be); and, another who was uninformed on her chosen topic (a teacher asking the public to “walk a mile in her shoes” who did not know taxpayers subsidized her salary).

Finally, Agar honed in on some other important factors which could contribute to getting him (and his audience) to care about you, including: putting the listener first, being assertive, being creative, and, seeing opportunities and capitalizing on them.

Though the talk focused on radio broadcasting, Agar tied his message back to the law and how to apply storytelling in the legal profession by relating the concepts he discussed to client advocacy and professional self-branding. Doubtlessly, the media can play a profound role in the former context, whether soliciting the media’s help in telling the story the way you want to tell it, or whether the media comes to you first, leaving you no choice in the matter. Also, it is unquestionable that lawyers in today’s climate can leverage the media to get the word of their services out to the public. As a law student, storytelling is a major component of the non-stop application processes I began the day I applied to law school, and Agar’s advice will no doubt stick with me long into my legal practice.

Jordan Fine is the IPilogue Content/Publication Editor��and a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

The post IP Osgoode Speaks Series featuring Jerry Agar: I Don’t Care About You appeared first on IPOsgoode.

To read the IPilogue's blog and commentary about the lecture, click .

The post IP Osgoode Speaks Series Video: Dr. Matthew Rimmer appeared first on IPOsgoode.

In a timely manner, only three days after the of the conclusion of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), Prof. Matthew Rimmer accepted our invitation and shared few of the hidden secrets behind the agreement as part of IP Osgoode speaks series.

This ‘blockbuster agreement’—supposedly a jovial landmark in the sphere of diplomatic international relations—was diluted with a mixture of uncertainty and secrecy. According to Prof. Rimmer, the TPP is a controversial agreement for several reasons. First, many concerns were raised regarding the involvement of major companies, via special advisory groups and executives, in drafting parts of the agreement. Consequently, the companies allegedly had more influence over the TPP than the legislators since the latter could not review the agreement that was protected (and still is) under the blinds of confidentiality. Second, a few notable countries are not signatories of the TPP (China and Russia for example). The reasons underlying China and Russia’s exclusions raise questions regarding the TPP’s true nature—is it really a trade agreement or simply, as Prof. Rimmer implied, ‘the coalition of the willing’ that was established as part of a U.S. global trade strategy.

Much of what we know to date about the TPP was retrieved from . Jamie Love, the director of (KEI), who recently shared��a into the TPP deliberations, alerted that "[i]n many sections … the TPP would change global norms, restrict access to knowledge, create significant financial risks for persons using and sharing information, and, in some cases, impose new costs on persons producing new knowledge goods."

IP Principles and Objectives

The TPP’s IP chapter covers a wide scope of topics and is positioned to change the normative boundaries of IP and, more specifically, of copyright. The traditional approach, as shaped in the U.S. and the U.K., is rooted in the perception of copyright as a means to inspire creation and proliferate knowledge. However, as Prof. Rimmer explains, it appears that the current vision of the TPP, under the influence of the music and movie industries, seeks to transform the normative balance of IP in order to strengthen the owners’ well-fortified rights. It is not hyperbole to define the TPP as a game changer that could have grave implications to the public domain.

A ‘Mickey Mouse’ Copyright Term Extension

According to Prof. Rimmer, the movie and the music industries have strategically argued for a prolonged extension of copyright terms. The TPP seems to answer their call, as it extends the term of protection to 70 years after the life of the author. This extension will likely have a profound affect in various fields, including Canadian cultural heritage, competition, innovation and the public domain. However, it is unclear if the TPP will include a demand for the revival of copyright works that were previously in the public domain. Prof. Rimmer also indicated that the TPP seeks to for orphan works.

Fair Use/Dealing and Disability Rights

There has been much academic discourse concerning whether the TPP language, in regards to the definition of fair use/dealing, is far too narrow or too broad compared to previous agreements, particularly the , in defining copyright exceptions. The TPP definition will most likely affect the course of this discussion. If the TPP adopts a narrow definition for fair use/dealing, it could set back recent developments in Canada related to the Supreme Court landmark decision in .

Copyright and disability rights stand in the center of recent international progress in copyright law. The —the most prevalent—aims to expand the recognition of the rights and interests of disabled people to access copyright protected materials, ending what was known as the ‘Book Famine’. According to Prof. Rimmer, the TPP makes an effort to recognize the Marrakesh Treaty. However, the Marrakesh Treaty is narrowly limited in scope to the visually impaired. Prof. Rimmer argues for a broader scope that will include other disabilities as well.

DMCA

The TPP seeks to export aspects of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act () and imbed Technological Protection Measures (known as ‘digital Locks’). Such anti-circumvention measures might endanger the fair use/dealing exceptions. The DMCA is a premature regime that was enacted almost two decades ago, in a pre-search engine and social media era, and is not well designed for current challenges. Stressing the absolute DMCA model as part of the TPP seems unreasonable. It should be noted that the DMCA model may have grave consequences to Canada, which in the past decade have defended its copyright laws against the DMCA successfully.

Protection and Enforcement

Protection and enforcement measures play an important role in the implementation of any international agreement. The TPP includes an arsenal of IP enforcement measures such as criminal offences and civil remedies. However, the TPP's rigid structure does not enable the members of the agreement much flexibility in adapting the TPP into their domestic laws. Prof. Rimmer criticized that the TPP ‘locks’ a specific model rigidly; it is uncompromising in regards to changes and modifications to the enforcement measures since it requires the approval of all members.

TPP’s Radical Vision

Prof. Rimmer concluded his lecture by stating that the TPP agreement ‘is radical’ not only in its objectives and purposes, but it also changes some of the fundamental doctrines in copyright such as term extension, fair use/dealing, liability issues etc., while diminishing the public domain in the process.

The TPP agreement is indeed a defining moment in the international effort to consolidate IP laws, however, the shroud of secrecy surrounding the TPP is not an encouraging sign. There is the general concern that the leaked terms of the TPP agreement will cause copyright laws to regress and destabilize the delicate balance between authors' and creators' rights to the public domain, thereby doing more harm than good.

The Sum of All Fears

On the eve of posting this blog, The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) finally published the��. Not surprisingly, we discovered that the TPP’s negotiation leaks were, in general terms, accurate. For example,��the TPP includes a copyright term extension of ‘not less than the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death’ (Article 18.63(a) to the TPP) as predicted. Obviously, we should read the TPP thoroughly, however—as it seems—it is indeed what we all feared it to be.

Aviv Gaon is a PhD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School

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Following effusive praise from as ‘one of the leading architects in IP’, and an introduction from ��in which we were reminded that Justice Rothstein’s exposure to IP had only begun in earnest after his appointment to the Federal Court in 1992, Justice Rothstein took to the podium. More information on his background and career can be found .

With talks from previous years taking in topics like the Copyright Pentalogy, or the art of litigating IP at the Supreme Court, the focus of the day was really on the passage of a case up the appellate ladder, and how the technical savvy of the judges filtered away to generalism as a case rose. Justice Rothstein elaborated about how trial judges at the Federal Court (where the majority of IP cases will begin) frequently come from an IP background themselves. As such, judges are not only closer to the factual record, but are also more likely to have some degree of expertise themselves. Beyond this, he explained, expediency plays less of a factor than at the appellate level, and so trial judges frequently enjoy greater access to counsel, and, with that, more time to develop an understanding of the topic.

The appellate courts are populated by a more generalist breed of judge, which is no bad thing. Citing article from Chicago’s 7^th Circuit Chief Judge Diane Wood, he noted that generalist judges can benefit from experience with a wider variety of legal issues, leaving them able to make connections between the technical subject matter and analogous areas of law to ensure that the overarching principles at hand are not ‘lost in the forest of technical detail’.

This generalism, then, is reflected in the standard of review that the Court has been setting for IP, with a high level of deference paid to most of the findings of the various administrative bodies that govern many of the issues that occur in IP. Post-Dunsmuir, we see reasonableness applied to the findings of administrative tribunals for issues of fact, mixed fact and law, and even some questions of law, with a relatively restrictive reading of when to apply correctness. However, Justice Rothstein was quick to stress that he hasn’t necessarily been seeing eye-to-eye with the Court in interpreting how to apply this standard. In , for example, he advocated unsuccessfully for a restriction of the deferential standard to cases in which there was a strong privative clause. Conversely, in , he suggested that the court had seemingly applied ‘reasonableness’ in name only when they found that the Copyright Board’s application of the ��fair dealing factors was ‘unreasonable’, leading to some tension between the Copyright Board and the Court.

It seems that the Court is still trying to figure out exactly how the standard of review should be defined here, and whether the nature of the tribunal requires an application of the standard of review analysis in every case, or whether a single standard can be etched out that might apply consistently. Justice Rothstein made no bones about the fact that he is ‘no fan of the standard of review industry’, but didn’t appear to have a solid alternative to suggest either. That said, we were reminded to keep an eye on prima facie unrelated developments in the law outside of IP, citing the recent����decision as one that may shape the future of the standard of review for cases dealing with factual matters, or ones of mixed fact and law.

The main impression that I received here, was that Justice Rothstein’s idea of the need to display deference was very much connected to the difference between generalism and technical expertise. Answering a question from Professor , he noted that he would have dispensed with expert evidence in a trademark case regarding confusion, as the notional ‘reasonable person’ (a ‘casual consumer somewhat in a hurry’) can easily be role-played by a judge (or any lay-person, for example). On the other hand, in a case like , the notional ‘person having ordinary skill in the art’ is, by definition, an expert in their field relative to a generalist judge, and so expert evidence and assistance is invaluable to the Court. Perhaps this signals a desire for separate standards of review to apply to each of the various disciplines of IP, with respect for the subject matter at hand.

Although this is Justice Rothstein’s final year at the Supreme Court, he has been an invaluable voice in IP, writing many of the Court’s decisions on the area. Whichever direction the court takes after the end of his term, IP enthusiasts can look back on an era in which an unprecedented number of issues have been decided at the Court. Hopefully, Justice Rothstein will have the opportunity to address a few more before that day comes.

Andrew Hunter is an IPilogue Editor and a J.D. Candidate at Osgoode Hall.

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