On April 26, 2021, the theme of World IP Day 2021 is “”. Since I founded the IP Innovation Clinic in 2010, the Clinic has helped countless innovators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to do exactly that. Our students have provided basic legal information to clients who otherwise would not have any access to it. To date, the Clinic has subsidized over $2,000,000CDN of legal fees that would otherwise have been paid by those without access to resources. This past year, the Clinic has expanded its impact through the recently launched , a free legal chatbot which uses a vast database of credible IP information to answer users’ initial IP questions and guide them to the type of legal help they need. This is only the beginning of the ChatBot’s story.

In a critical time of Covid-19 isolation, I aim to ensure that the IP Innovation ChatBot’s content is accessible and attuned to the unique realities of underrepresented communities in Canada’s intellectual property (IP) innovation ecosystem; namely, women and indigenous peoples. Having assisted clients in these underrepresented groups in the IP Innovation Clinic, and through my own research and writing in this area, I have seen first-hand the distinct struggles these groups confront in the traditional IP innovation ecosystem and the distinct challenges they face to bring their innovations to society; from being silenced in their ideation phase to lacking adequate resources and know-how to develop IP strategies attuned to their unique needs and perspectives.

This AI-powered initiative has been launched thanks to the Canadian government’s , and supports its mandate to increase IP awareness and education by making IP information more accessible. These learnings can easily be applied to other areas of the law.

The ChatBot has been realized due to visionary IP Innovation Clinic champions backing our work, Innovation 91��ɫ at 91��ɫ, Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) at the very outset and Bergeron Entrepreneurs Science and Technology (BEST) Program at Lassonde School of Engineering and Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) Canada LLP. Indeed, the technical and legal expertise of Partner, Maya Medeiros, and Al Hounsell at NRF, and our Osgoode JD team of students led by Ryan Wong, class of 2021. It is also an honour to work closely with other leaders in the federal government such as the Konstantinos Georgaras, CEO (Interim) at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and Jennifer Miller, Erin Campbell and their teams at Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), who understand and work hard to overcome the challenges Canadian innovators face.

I previously uncovered the various challenges that underrepresented communities face in the IP innovation system and how grassroots initiatives, such as IP legal clinics, can assist in and in more recent work to use the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to build an IP Innovation ChatBot to make IP law more accessible. Going forward, I plan to expand on this foundational and empirical work to build the IP Innovation Clinic and the ChatBot to make the IP innovation ecosystem more accessible.

Ultimately, in an era of increasing technological disruption and lingering societal inequality and pandemic isolation, I hope to influence future legal education and make our justice system accessible to all Canadians.

Indeed, AI applications, including legal chatbots, use machine learning to make the law more understandable, manageable, useful, accessible, predictable, and efficient. Legal chatbots increase access to justice through their wider reach and lower costs. Many underrepresented communities receive either inadequate or no legal help at all. Technology currently cannot provide complex legal advice, but AI-powered online legal services can cost-effectively deliver accessible, basic legal help. Some, like our IP Innovation ChatBot, do so for free. Chatbots can thus democratize access to basic legal services for the underserved, and therefore deserve greater study and adoption.

Since its January 29, 2021 launch, the IP Innovation ChatBot has been a magnet for public use. Several members of the legal community have already inquired to learn how to emulate it. With the information from these analyses, I plan to design and build an enhanced, interactive, dynamic, and accessible portal powered by next-generation artificial intelligence operating on big data curated by our pioneering IP Innovation ChatBot.

The ChatBot will remain a free, sophisticated, and smart online tool, driven by AI and designed to cater to underrepresented and disenfranchised innovators. It will soon house key IP resources and information, leading updates, and links to Canadian and international government IP resources. The ChatBot’s scaled-up national platform will analyse its amassed archive of data and identify common IP knowledge translation problems to devise and anticipate solutions. Adapted for the COVID-19 era and beyond, the ChatBot will support the next generation of lawyers, educate and stimulate innovation from underrepresented communities, provide start-up entrepreneurs with access to IP resources, and be the public’s go-to tool for independent and impartial IP knowledge.

Prof Pina D’Agostino is Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, the IPilogue, the IP Innovation Clinic, and officially since January 2021 the recently launched IP Innovation Clinic ChatBot.

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Today, with easy access to delivery services, environmentally friendly packaging is an important consideration for many companies and purchasers. There are several aspects of packaging to think about when trying to decrease its environmental impact, including the packaging itself, the emissions required to ship it, and the energy and raw materials that go into its manufacture.

The Packaging Itself

Packaging may be biodegradable, compostable, recyclable, or none of the above. Containers and packaging account for of waste in the US (up from 27 million tons in 1960), which is about 30% of all total solid waste in the country. Now, we’re starting to see new solutions to divert waste from landfills; many of these solutions are 100% biodegradable. For example, is made completely of mushrooms and can be molded for various products.

The Emissions Used in Shipping

While the downside of plastic is highly publicized, one advantage of plastic packaging is its lightweight quality. Plastic is one of the lightest packaging materials, lighter than its heavier glass and paper alternatives. That means it and produces fewer emissions when it is eventually destroyed.

Packaging weight is particularly important in specific industries, like the wine industry. of American wine is produced on the West Coast, and then shipped to the East Coast where a majority of wine consumers live. Half the weight of an ordinary case of wine comes from the bottles. In contrast, in a case of boxed wine, of the weight comes from the boxes. So, if wine manufacturers shift from bottled to boxed wine, that the resulting reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of removing from the roads.

The Energy and Materials Required to Manufacture Packaging

To make environmentally friendly packaging, a company has to take into account the quantity of raw materials, and the that go into manufacturing the packaging. Some companies have taken huge steps towards reducing their packaging’s impact. For example, Puma’s has replaced its shoeboxes, and uses 60% less energy and water to produce. It saves 8, 500 tons of paper, 20 million megajoules of electricity, 1 million litres of water and 10,000 tons of carbon emissions per year.

Ways to Protect IP Rights in Environmentally Friendly Packaging

Puma’s Clever Little Bag also required the design team to brainstorm around 2,000 ideas over the course of nearly two years before arriving at the final design. In order to protect companies’ investments in their products and incentivize companies to innovate for a green future, IP law can step in and protect packaging in various ways.

Trademarks

With the recent amendments to the (the Act), distinguishing guises are no longer protected as a discrete category of trademarks. However, the new definition of a trademark under section 2 of the Act still covers modes of packaging. Of course, a company cannot protect its mode of packaging if its function is primarily utilitarian (s.12(2) of the Act) if having a monopoly over that mode of packaging will limit the development of an art or industry (s.18.1 of the Act).

Companies can also trademark different aspects of their packaging, such as a specific texture or the colour of the packaging. As always, the name of the business can be protected by trademark law to allow the business to grow, and potentially license its trademark once protection is obtained to ensure the widespread use of its eco-friendly packaging and products.

Copyright

Copyright law can protect specific artwork that appears on packaging, as well as thought-provoking artistic works that comment on our use of packaging. For example, there have been a few interactive art pieces that provide viewers with a visceral understanding of how much plastic consumers use each day. Some examples are this and this . Allowing artists to protect and even profit off these kinds of artistic statements allows the vision of a green future to proliferate around the world and encourages innovation in a direction away from wasteful packaging.

Industrial design

A company may also want to register its packaging as an industrial design. For example, the GE energy efficient lightbulb is packaged in a case that reduces the amount of packaging and processed materials needed to protect the bulb. The three-dimensional shape and configuration of this package may be eligible for registration as an industrial design, though it has yet to be registered. has over a thousand registrations under the search term “package,” so there is clearly ample opportunity to protect innovative, sustainable packaging designs.

Patents

Packages may not only be creatively designed, but its materials may be uniquely manufactured as well. For example, a company called Notpla has a that is currently pending for made from seaweed. Patents can protect novel packaging technologies or processes for manufacturing packaging that require less energy than standard processes. While there is some concern that patents prevent the proliferation of green innovation due to their monopolizing function, the time-limited protection allows inventors to gain back their initial investment and incentivizes others to invest in their own packaging technologies and manufacturing processes.

Hopefully, we will continue to see new ideas from companies and individuals who see a benefit in reducing the environmental impact of the packaging materials themselves, as well as the emissions and energy that go into manufacturing and shipping packaging. There are many ways IP law can support green innovation in this area and help to make a major impact on our future.

Written by Rachel Marcus, a second year JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is a guest contributor with the IPilogue.

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Lara Hammoud

Q1 Do you believe that it is important to have more women involved in the IP system?

It is important that every citizen gets the chance to contribute to the economy in one way or another. Diversity of opinion and thought is the cradle of creativity and innovation. The gender, race or age of the contributor is insignificant as long as their contribution furthers our goal to make a positive difference in each other’s lives. This especially applies to the IP system as the shield and the protector of innovation. People from different backgrounds and experiences and of different gender see the world through different lenses. With that diversity and a dose of female sense of compassion and responsibility, women’s participation in the IP system will certainly boost innovation and ensure a proper intellectual property protection.

Q2 Have you noticed a gender gap in your industry? Is the situation changing?

In my brief experience in the finance and legal world, as well as my current experience as an entrepreneur, the gender gap is definitely evident in some industries more than in others. However, I would definitely say that the tide is turning. At the Western Accelerator that I am currently a part of, female entrepreneurs are by far not a minority. As a matter of a fact, out of the group of eight start-ups, only three are led by men.

Q3 Do you think it is more difficult for female innovators and entrepreneurs to secure funding (and, therefore, be able to afford IP costs)?

Based on reports and stats, it is obvious that female-led start-ups are funded less. Now, the reasons for that may be various (e.g., not enough women venturing into the entrepreneurial route). However, there are many emerging initiatives that are addressing this specific concern. We are witnessing more and more venture capital firms, collaboration spaces, incubators and accelerators that either fully focus on female-led start-ups or make an effort to recruit more female entrepreneurs.

Q4 Are there unique challenges that female inventors and entrepreneurs face?

In my opinion, female entrepreneurs have the same opportunities as their male counterparts with respect to resources such as training, mentorships and sometimes funding. The challenges that women most often face are building their credibility and being taken seriously. In some industries, women have to prove themselves worthy to get that funding or to close that deal. In this sense, entrepreneurship is not any different than any other male dominant field.

Q5 How can the innovation and IP ecosystems become more inclusive for under-represented groups, such as female entrepreneurs?

Any change starts with a change in perceptions and values (i.e. culture). To make innovation and IP ecosystems more inclusive, the industry and the society should undergo a shift towards an impartial and more inclusive culture. The culture will then trickle into action and common practice. This is when we will drop the word “female” when we address a woman who is an entrepreneur, and the word entrepreneur will stand for both female and male entrepreneurs.

Q6 What types of assistance will benefit female entrepreneurs?

I believe that the best assistance an entrepreneur would benefit from is mentorship. Strong mentors can drag entrepreneurs out from their down-moments and help them reach their highs. As mentioned earlier, female entrepreneurs need to be resilient and must learn how to prove themselves worthy. And with a strong and trustworthy mentor – the sky is truly the limit.

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Encouraging and empowering female entrepreneurs to succeed in the IP system is paramount.    by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) finds that the number of Canadian inventors filing via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is growing at a rate higher than Canadian men (from 1997 to 2015, the number of Canadian women named on PCT applications grew by 377%, compared to 285% for Canadian men). However, Canadian female inventors only made up 12% of Canadian PCT applications, a number that is persistently lower than the number of Canadian women working in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Internationally, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that gender parity in the PCT system will not be achieved until 2076.  This year’s World IP Day theme is an ideal opportunity to examine why this disconnect exists and how to overcome it.

The IP Osgoode Q&A series also features Innovation Clinic founder & director, and legal supervisor, , a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP , who will offer their insights on how the IP system can support innovative and creative women in their quest to bring their amazing ideas to market.

We hope you enjoy and check back soon!

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Launched in 2010, the Osgoode Innovation Clinic was the first student-staffed IP legal clinic of its kind in Canada. Osgoode students, who are supervised and mentored by lawyers from , offer pro bono legal assistance to start-ups. By providing our students with the opportunity to help start-ups with real-world IP-related business issues, the Innovation Clinic not only helps educate our next generation of legal thinkers and practitioners on how to commercialize IP but it also minimizes some of the access to justice barriers that can so often choke a start-up company in its nascent stages.

In its seven years of operation, the Innovation Clinic has attracted a broad range of clients including walk-ins from the general public, referrals from a number of external organizations, such as the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), ventureLAB, OCADU, and the 91��ɫ Entrepreneurship Development Institute, and through formal collaborations between 91��ɫ’s and the Lassonde School of Engineering’s .

Earlier this year, we were happy to a new partnership with the International Law Research Program (ILRP) at the The partnership aims to expand the Innovation Clinic, support research that critically evaluates the Innovation Clinic model as well as clinic models elsewhere, and identify potential opportunities for developing a network of clinics in Canada and beyond.

Whether you are a student, legal practitioner, entrepreneur or inventor, there are many ways for you to get involved with the Innovation Clinic or benefit from its services and resources. Click to learn more about the Innovation Clinic or contact us at iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca

On World IP Day, we encourage our readership to join the conversation in the comments section below. Which innovation has most improved your life? What more can be done to make sure new technologies reach the people who need them? What do you think should be the priorities for future innovation?

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.

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This year’s theme is Get Up, Stand Up, For Music, a welcome ‘call to arms’ in support of artist rights. This is the 15th World IP Day, and the first to specifically highlight music, which is appropriate as music and IP are intrinsically linked. The event provides an opportunity to reflect on how intellectual property affects music, and how we listen to it. We don’t often think about it when listening to our favourite song, but IP plays a critical role in taking that song from the artist’s conception to our speakers at home.

Today, music fans have more options than ever to enjoy their favourite music and to discover new artists. There are now more than 400 licensed music services worldwide, with a model to suit all consumer preferences, from subscription services, to digital downloads, to the physical world of CDs, vinyl, and deluxe box sets. The music industry has embraced the digital revolution, which has provided artists with new avenues to bring their music to the global marketplace. It is intellectual property, and specifically copyright, that allows creators to sell and license their music in this wide array of platforms.

But regardless of the medium, the creator’s rights must be respected and fairly compensated. With so much access to music available today, it can be easy to take for granted the talent and years of practice an artist puts into their craft, as well the efforts and investments of the many people working to nurture and develop their career. It is important to remember that long before a song hits the radio or your earbuds, a team of professionals work to support the artist’s creative development and use their expertise to bring the artist’s talent to market.

Record companies remain the primary investors in artist careers. The IFPI’s Investing in Music report estimates that record companies have invested more than US$20 billion in artists and repertoire (A&R) and marketing over the past five years. In fact, the music industry invests a greater proportion of global revenues in A&R than most other sectors do in research and development (R&D). The music industry’s investment of 28% of revenues in A&R exceeds the R&D investment of industries such as pharmaceutical and biology (14.4%), software and computing (9.9%), or technology hardware and equipment (7.9%) sectors. Again, it is copyright that makes this investment possible. Copyright allows the industry to gain a return on these A&R and marketing costs, and reinvest those resources into the next generation of artists. This is why a secure copyright framework is so critical to the music industry.

While the music industry has made great strides in developing the digital marketplace, piracy remains a major problem for the industry, which stifles sustainable growth. This is where we need to ‘Stand Up for Music’, and support measures that will help tackle the problem. Today’s music piracy takes place in many forms, from unlicensed cyberlockers, BitTorrent fire-sharing, stream-ripping, and unauthorized distribution through mainstream social media networks. The IFPI’s Digital Music Report estimates that 20% of fixed-line internet users worldwide regularly access services offering copyright infringing music. The report also identifies that major brands, such as Microsoft and the Royal Bank of Canada, are fuelling the piracy ecosystem with advertising dollars from legitimate businesses. Research quoted in the report found that 596 infringing sites generated US$227 million per year in advertising revenue, none of which goes to the artists, songwriters, and labels whose music attracts users to these sites. Rights holders around the world continue to push for support to tackle this evolving problem from governments and internet intermediaries.

Artists are among the most powerful voices in this fight. We have seen that when artists speak out in support of their rights, they can have a strong impact in the conversation. This was made clear this week, as artists such as Leonard Cohen, Randy Bachman, and Gordon Lightfoot spoke up in support of the federal budget’s proposal to extend the term for copyright of sound recordings in Canada to 70 years from 50 years. Similarly, last summer, artists such as the Barenaked Ladies, Brett Kissel, and Bob Ezrin brought significant attention to the Copyright Board of Canada’s Tariff 8 decision, which set the rate for music streaming services in Canada at less than 10% of rates that the same services pay in the United States and many other countries. The issue united Canada’s music sector, with more than 80 music industry associations and labels, led by Music Canada, CIMA, ADISQ and Canadian Council of Music Industry Associations (CCMIA), joining together to form “”, a coalition that continues to raise public awareness about the disastrous effects of the Tariff 8 ruling.

We will further discuss artist rights and advocacy at next month’s Global Forum at Canadian Music Week, when a panel of creators will discuss how to protect the ability of creative artists from musicians to filmmakers, to journalists and authors, to earn a living. The panel will feature Scott Timberg, author of Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, and one of a growing number of people who say the creative economy is broken. Zoë Keating, a Canadian cellist will speak to her experience trying to earn a living as a full time musician. Although she didn’t set out to become an artist advocate, Keating was thrust into the spotlight when she refused to back down against one of the largest intermediaries of music, Youtube, over her right to control how and when her music was distributed. Artist and label owner Blake Morgan returns to the panel, having just seen his I Respect Music campaign log a major success with the recent introduction of bipartisan legislation in the U.S. to ensure artists are fairly paid on digital services and AM/FM radio. The panel will be moderated by Kate Taylor, a columnist with the Globe and Mail and frequent writer on technology, the media and music.

To fully realize the potential of music’s ever expanding digital marketplace, we need to encourage a fair licensing environment and a world where copyright is respected and music is fairly valued. With that in mind, I would like to use the occasion of World IP Day to encourage all those who appreciate the value of music in our lives to advocate for artist rights, and Get Up, Stand Up. For Music.

Graham Henderson is the president and CEO of Music Canada, an association that promotes the interests of the Canadian music community. Music Canada is a passionate advocate for music in Canada, a trusted source of music-related news and information, and a respected forum for all things music.

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This year's theme is "Visionary Innovators" and it seeks to celebrate the role that innovators play in the creation of Intellectual Property. As WIPO Director General Francis Gurry noted in his , innovators are "people whose innovations transform our lives.  Their impact is enormous.  They can, at times, change the way society operates."

In his annual address, the Director general also discusses the importance of maintaining a proper balance between the incentivizing innovators to create, and public interest in sharing useful innovations. He notes that "we have to get the balances right, and that is why it is so important to talk about intellectual property.  On this World Intellectual Property Day I would encourage young people in particular to join in the discussion, because intellectual property is, by definition, about change, about the new.  It is about achieving the transformations that we want to achieve in society."

In Canada, the (CIPO) has set up . The website includes tips for making IP a part of your business, information on IP for students, success stories of famous innovators, and additional information on the history and importance of World IP Day.  There is also a fun "IP Basics Quiz" where visitors can test their knowledge of various fields of intellectual property.

For more information about World Intellectual Property Day, you can visit the , or join in the conversation yourself at the .

Mark Kohras is a JD student at Osgoode Hall Law School. For IP Osgoode's coverage of last year's World IP Day event, see .

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