Changes to the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act received royal assent today. The legislation, Bill C-18, An Act to amend certain Acts relating to agriculture and agri-food, includes changes addressing the duration, scope and exceptions to the rights under the Act.
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Federal Court Modernization
The Federal Courts Rules have been amended to remove obstacles to greater use of technology by the court. Among other things, the changes permit the registry to maintain an official electronic record, clarifying electronic service, amend the definition of ‘document’ and permit electronic filing. Also, the Federal Court has published a Notice to the Profession regarding obtaining copies from the digital audio recording system used at hearings.
NAFTA Arbitration
The government has posted its counter memorial regarding Eli Lilly’s NAFTA arbitration of Canada’s ‘promise utility doctrine’. The next phase, according to the proceeding’s schedule, is the production of documents.
Canadian Trademark Firms in 2014
About 50,400 trademark applications were filed in Canada in 2014. Of these, about 20% were filed in-house or without an agent (about the same as in the last couple of years). Gowlings, Bereskin & Parr and Smart & Biggar were the firms that filed the most trademark applications. Check out my list of the 50 firms/agents that filed the most applications in 2014.
Top Patentees in Canada 2014
BlackBerry tops the list once again for receiving the most Canadian patents in the past year. The others in the top five for 2014 were Qualcomm, P&G, General Electric and Schlumberger. Approximately 23,000 Canadian patents were granted last year to approximately 9500 applicants.
Claim Construction
Today, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Teva v. Sandoz regarding the standard of review on claim construction. A majority held that rather than a de novo review, the Court of Appeals must review claim construction for ‘clear error’.
Border Enforcement
Sections of the Combating Counterfeit Products Act relating to a new border enforcement regime come into force January 1, 2015, as published today in the Canada Gazette.
Standard Essential Patents
Earlier today, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released its decision in Ericsson, Inc. v. D-Link Systems, Inc. relating to standard essential patents on the 802.11(n) wireless standard. Ericsson had committed to RAND license terms on its patents and the court considered what RAND royalty rate would be appropriate.
Third Round
On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu LLC that the claims to a method of distributing copyrighted media over the Internet were directed to unpatentable subject matter . The U.S. Supreme Court had previously remanded the proceeding back to the CAFC after Myriad and again after Alice when, in both previous cases, the court had found the claims patentable. Continue reading Third Round
Gene Patents
As indicated below, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) has started litigation against the University of Utah Research Foundation, Genzyme Genetics and Yale University. The litigation seeks a declaration of non-infringement and invalidity of certain patents relating to Long QT Syndrome genes, including on the basis of non-patentable subject matter. Continue reading Gene Patents