The United States has entered into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act, federal trade secrets legislation. The legislation creates a civil cause of action for the misappropriation of trade secrets.
All posts by Alan Macek
NPEs
To what extent are non-practicing entities (NPEs – aka patent assertion entities or in some instances, patent trolls) operating and asserting patents in Canada? Please help me by completing a short survey on NPE activity in Canada. I’ll post the results in a few weeks. Thanks to those who have already completed the survey.
IPEGs
The Competition Bureau has released updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines. The guidelines are directed to the Bureau’s approach to investigating anti-competitive activities relating to intellectual property including settlements, particularly in PM(NOC) proceedings, price-fixing, patent pooling, product switching, patent assertion entities and standard essential patents.
Marrakesh Treaty
Bill C-11 entitled, “An Act to amend the Copyright Act (access to copyrighted works or other subject-matter for persons with perceptual disabilities)” was introduced today to implement the Marrakesh Treaty.
Design Remedies
The United States Supreme Court has granted cert in Apple v. Samsung on the question of the apportionment of the infringers profits for design infringement.
SCC Dockets
As an add-on to my existing Supreme Court monitoring features, I’m adding the ability to get notifications of individual docket additions for Supreme Court proceedings such as correspondence and filing. Email me if you are interested in being part of the beta-testing group for this feature – you get first access to this feature and can provide feedback on what works or further improvements.
Promise
The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave today in AstraZeneca Canada Inc., et al. v. Apotex Inc., et al. (Esomeprazole), which considers, among other things, the promised utility doctrine in Canada. More details below.
Gene Patents
For those following Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s challenge to the validity of certain gene patents in the Federal Court (T-2249-14 – see earlier post), CHEO has announced a settlement: “the patent holder Transgenomic has agreed to provide CHEO and all other Canadian public sector hospitals and laboratories the right to test Canadians for Long QT syndrome on a not-for-profit basis”.
More Promise?
The Supreme Court of Canada will release its leave to appeal decision on Thursday in AstraZeneca Canada Inc., et al. v. Apotex Inc., et al. (Esomeprazole), which considers, among other things, the promised utility doctrine in Canada. SCC File #36654 on appeal from 2015 FCA 158.
US Agent Privilege
Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Re: Queen’s University relating to non-attorney patent agent privilege. The Court concluded that such privilege should be recognized.