Judicial appointments have been made in the Federal Court, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia. In the Federal Court, Prothonotary Lafrenière was appointed as a judge.
Tag Archives: Federal Court
“Miscellaneous Amendments”
Proposed amendments to the Federal Courts Rules have been published that are described as “non-substantive, non-controversial”. The proposed changes address differences between the English and French versions and reduce the number of paper copies required in some circumstances. Consultation is open for 60 days.
Protective Orders
My recent article on the use of protective and confidentiality orders in the Federal Court is available on Slaw. This topic was one of the items discussed last week at the Federal Court town hall and was the subject of an order released last week which stated, “The open court principle is of crucial importance in a democratic society, … Confidentiality orders inherently compromise these fundamental principles and important rights.” Continue reading Protective Orders
CETA
Bill C-30, the CETA implementation legislation received royal assent today. The Bill includes amendments to the Patent Act, regarding supplementary protection for pharmaceutical products and altering patent linkage system, and to the Trade-mark Act regarding geographic indicators with grounds of opposition and certain exceptions for prior use, acquired rights and generic terms. Amendments are also proposed to a number of other acts. Implementation regulations are expected any day.
CBA IP Day
After a kickoff at the Diversity Breakfast, CBA IP Day continued with the Federal Court’s Town Hall focused on the imminent overhaul to pharmaceutical litigation in Canada, including two years to trial, focused discovery, changes to costs regime and efficient trial management. Bill C-30, the CETA implementation legislation cleared the senate this afternoon. Continue reading CBA IP Day
Judges’ Dinner
Looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at the CBA IP Day and Judges’ Dinner in Ottawa – please say hi if you will be there too. The day begins with a Diversity Breakfast and a Town Hall with members of the Federal Court, followed by the CBA IP Professional Development program in the afternoon and concludes with the Judges’ Dinner.
Trial Management
The Federal Court issued a practice notice on trial management conferences and procedures. The guidelines identify issues to be determined at pre-trial conferences and trial management conferences as well as impose new deadlines for pre-trial steps.
Reasonable Royalties and Non-Infringing Alternatives
In a decision released earlier this year, Frac Shack Inc. v. AFD Petroleum Ltd., 2017 FC 104, the defendant was found to infringe several of the claims in a patent relating to a fuel delivery system used for hot refuelling equipment used for hydraulic fracturing. The court ordered a 27% royalty rate for sales made prior to the grant of the patent at issue and did not consider a manual process as being a non-infringing alternative. My article on this decision was published by Slaw. Continue reading Reasonable Royalties and Non-Infringing Alternatives
No Email
There is no IPPractice daily email for November 25 because the Federal Court websites are down for scheduled maintenance. Continue reading No Email
Patent Colloquium
For those interested, the Fifth Annual Patent Colloquium at the new law building at UofT is a month away on Friday, November 4th. There will be panel discussions on early stage claim construction, independence of experts, non-infringing alternatives, among other topics.