Patent Leather.

CBC Radio One - Who Owns Ideas?

2008-09-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

A recent CBC Radio Ideas feature entitled "Who owns Ideas?" discusses the progression of intellectual property law and specifically copyright law. The host describes a tension in copyright law that has become known as the copyfight, and it's ultimately a dispute about who owns ideas. CBC has

eDiscovery

2008-08-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

I read a great (and short) article in Wired Magazine describing the current state of document discovery for litigations. Technology has increased the already large number of documents generally involved in complex litigations. Fortunately (or not so) the electronic format makes the document more consumable and discoverable. For example, current document management systems allow for content

Olympic Patents - Speedo Suit

2008-08-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the Olympics (and a record breaking swimming Olympics) I thought I would highlight United States Patent Application 2008/0141431 filed by Speedo on August 16, 2007 for the torso swimsuit we have seen on the Olympians. The application describes a garment (e.g. a swim suit) having a base layer of stretchable elasticated fabric, the base layer having a torso portion that

Hasbro, Inc. v. RJ Softwares et al

2008-07-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

Hasbro, Inc. v. RJ Softwares et al. was filed July 24, 2008 in the New York Southern District Court. This case relates to an allegation of trade-mark and copyright law infringement against the makers of the Facebook application Scrabulous.The effect is that the well used Facebook application Scrabulous is shut down. I'm not a big user of Facebook or the application, but the New York Times reports

Symbian mobile OS opens up

2008-07-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

It is great to read that Nokia now fully owns Symbian, a huge player in the mobile device OS field (runs on Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Erricson devices), and established the Symbian Foundation to release the OS under the Eclipse public license. It will be interesting to read these public license terms in detail.This move by Nokia may have been influenced by Google's recent acquisition of Android,

Patent Application for Online Shopping by Apple

2008-06-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

U.S. Patent Application 2008/0091553 assigned to Apple Computer Inc. titled "Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere" was recently published on April 17, 2008.According to the background of the application: "one drawback of online shopping is that the experience can feel sterile and isolating. Customers in such an environment may be less likely to have positive feelings about the online

Bill C-61

2008-06-14T19:24:00.001-07:00

This issue is press heavy. I am reading the Bill, re-reading it, and enjoying the commentary.Text of Bill C-61 here.Great fact sheets here.Information of the legislative process re a Canadian Bill here.

Radiohead v. Prince

2008-06-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

I attended Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival this year, where Prince performed on the Saturday night and covered Radiohead's 'Creep'. When clips appeared on YouTube Prince's label had them removed. Thom Yorke responded:"Really? He's blocked it?" asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. "Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment."Yorke added: "Well, tell him to unblock

New Copyright Bill this Summer

2008-06-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

Geist reports on his blog that the new Copyright Bill is being introduced Wednesday.The draft may well circulate before the CSUSA meeting next week.

CSUSA - Annual Meeting

2008-06-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

The Copyright Society of the USA (CSUSA) is having their general meeting on June 8th to June 10th in Newport, Rhode Island. CSUSA is:"dedicated to advancing the study of copyright law and related rights in literature, music, art, theater, motion pictures, television, computer software, architecture, and other works of authorship, distributed via both traditional and new media".Page of meeting

solar iPods

2008-05-31T00:17:00.000-07:00

I came across a patent application relating to solar cells on portable devices. It may be linked to (or owned by) Apple.U.S. Patent Application No. 20080094025A sample claim:A portable data processing system, comprising:a processing system;a memory coupled to the processing system;a set of solar cells coupled to the processing system, the set of solar cells including a first group of

Orphan works

2008-05-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

A great resource for orphan works is the U.S. Copyright Office's pageFor a detailed review check out the Statement of Marybeth Peters before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and IP. The recommendation:"we recommended a framework whereby a legitimate orphan works owner who resurfaces may bring an action for “reasonable compensation” against a qualifying user. A user does not qualify for

ACTA

2008-05-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is an international treaty for establishing global standards for intellectual property law."ACTA is spearheaded by the United States, the European Commission, Japan, and Switzerland — those countries with the largest intellectual property industries. Other countries invited to participate in ACTA’s negotiation process are Canada, Australia, Korea,

Google friend connect

2008-05-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Google has just announced a new social networking application, that opens up networking technology. By building on top of existing APIs, Google friend connect merges existing social networking sites. One simply embeds the application into their website, and instantly the website is connected into the network. Your friends can comment on sites, and their messages will be published to you.I wonder

OCE Discovery 08

2008-05-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Ontario Centres for Excellence (OCE) is hosting a conference: Discovery 2008 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, May 12-13. OCE supports innovation and commercialization - and there is a great showroom.

Virtual Law Firm

2008-05-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

I've been looking into virtual law firms and came across this articleabout a law firm XDL Group that exists in second life and units real world lawyers.

tineye

2008-05-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

Tineye is a new image search engine - from a Toronto based company.

Video Gaming Symposium

2008-04-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

Bell Univeristy Labs at UofT is holding a Video Gaming Research Symposium on May 13, 2008: click here.This is a great way to check out what video gaming research is being carried out at UofT.

Ringtones Case

2008-04-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

I am waiting for the Supreme Courts decision on whether they are going to hear the infamous Ringtones case: CWTA, Telus, Bell v. SOCAN.In January 2008 The Federal Court of Appeal sided in favor of SOCAN and decided first that transmitting a ringtone file to a cell phone is a "communication" under Copyright law, and second that it is a "communication to the public". This allows SOCAN to collect

iSummit 08

2008-04-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Insight: Copyright in Canada

2008-03-10T19:09:00.001-07:00

A conference on copyright law in Canada, that has some interesting topics on digital copyright issues - click here.May 12-13, 2008 Old Mill, Toronto.

Plews v. Pausch (Alta. QB)

2008-03-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

Date of decision: 2006-08-09At issue was the difference between an idea and its fixed expression.An academic supervisor was found to not infringe a student's copyright when writing an article on the student's PhD topic.Full text of decision here.

Viacom et al v. Youtube et al

2008-03-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

I have been following the above U.S. copyright infringement lawsuit. Click here for links to the court documents.

Tech Law Conference

2008-03-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

OBA 4th Annual Technology in Bloom: New Developments in Technology Law conference.April 3rd, 2008 in Toronto, Canada.

mesh conference

2008-03-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to Canada's web conference: mesh.May 21st and 2nd, 2008 in Toronto, Canada.

teaching the machine

2007-02-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

talk park

2007-01-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

nice work pops - i just read the penticton herald article on the Philospoher's Cafe coming up.it's great that you encourage dialogue and get the information and ideas out!

last.fm

2006-11-30T18:59:00.000-08:00

love this last.fm - great way to check out music - add me as your friend

lonelygirl15 - love the idea

2006-11-21T19:49:00.000-08:00

wired article on lonelygirl15

catan

2006-10-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

catan is the best game ever.hmmmmm.... i think i am getting an idea for halloween.

eat your view

2006-09-18T18:57:00.001-07:00

just listening to a 2 part podcast from cbc 'ideas' on Organic food.one guy was talking about a bumper sticker with "eat your view". i like that message. if you eat locally, the agricultural areas around you will get bigger and better. plus you are supporting your community and the food will probably taste better too. this is another step away from our fuel dependency.saw this blog about a eat

language 101 - yassis!

2006-07-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

as I am on my way to the greek islands I wanted to pick up a little greek talk before I headed out. the good ol' bbc website has the best beginner language tutorials, complete with print outs, videos and mp3 lessons for the plane ride. they have tons of languages, so pick up a lil portugeuse today.

inconvenient truth

2006-06-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

I am going to try to see Al Gore's documentary: An Inconvenient Truth , tomorrow at Cumberland theatre. I read an article in Eye Weekly on the film today at a coffee shop. The only criticism of the film was that it pointed out the climate crisis we are heading towards, but did not inform people on how we can correct our fossil fuel burning behavior. Last month I read an article in Wired on the

peer to patent project

2006-05-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

I attended a lecture tonight at UofT called "The answer is open source, but what are the questions?" given by Ira Fuchs (from Princeton) (hmmm how is his last name pronounced). Ira mentioned this new project by the US Patents and Trademarks office called Peer to Patent Project. After admitting that the patent system is a mess, the USPTO has created this project that allows technical people from

Digitization - we need you!

2006-04-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

This post is part of the Young Caucasus Women Blog Mentor Project(each sunday a different person posts on a topic. Throughout the week young women from the Caucasus region and the weekly blogger comment and post about the topic. I am up this week).Click here to see the weekly postsClick on these links to see the weekly posts and comments: armenia, georgia, azerbaijanHi everyone - My name is Maya

sunday

2006-04-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

sundays post will be part of the mentor blogging program with young women in the Caucasus region. it has been great reading all the posts and discussion by the others in the group!check the site for more info

i love these yellow bikes

2006-03-30T23:02:00.000-08:00

well I stumbled upon the community bicycle network site (from toronto). it has a great program called bike share, where seasons pass holders (for $30) can pick up a bike at numerous hubs all over toronto, and bike around (for up to 3 days at a time - for long bikeride lovers) and then return the bike at any hub they want. all the bikes are yellow with a basket on the front. it would be great to

arrr - me music matey

2006-03-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

A great place to get music news is digg/music.It brings democracy back into the meaning of popular.I love how the first story is about Canada being the number one "music piracy" nation. Man I really hope people don't buy this crap. I was reading a great post on Geist's blog titled "Music and the Market". It criticizes the CRIAs recent argument that based on a test sample of one song, Canadians

t-dot to the hotspot

2006-03-07T00:35:00.000-08:00

thanks to jenny mc for the know - toronto is going to be come a nice hopspot and give those telecoms (down w/ rogers) a run for their monopoly. as early as this fall downtown. sweet assTheStar.com - T.O. to become wireless hotspot: "Toronto Hydro Corp. will announce Tuesday that it plans to turn Canada's largest city into one giant wireless hotspot, directly challenging the country's major mobile

maya he maya ho

2006-03-01T09:03:00.000-08:00

just stumbled upon (literally) this funny video made by a guy I went to highschool with (didn't realize it until I started watching the video) he's the pilotIt is super funny, plus a couple summers ago my friends used to sing the main parts to me "maya he maya ho maya he maya hoho"

weeds

2006-02-17T20:44:00.000-08:00

i love the show weeds --- my sister breeze hooked me up. thanks!i just downloaded the soundtrack on itunes. good thing the record labels good.here is the list if ya wanna peek: soundtracksupdate: on a completely different gear, just found a link to the digital copy of the letter that tons law profs wrote to Mr. Harper about the constitutional implications if he desides to exclude same sex couples

privacy is a good thing people

2006-02-16T23:39:00.000-08:00

so I was reading that skype uses a super complex (ie: never can tap in) voice encryption on calls made thru its network (265 bit - which is crazy). the journaliast from the g&m kept referring to this as a super scary thing - and very negative. here is an example: "'It is a pretty secure form of communication, which if you're talking to your mistress you really appreciate, but if Al Qaeda is

music revolution

2006-02-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

One of my fav talks of the weekend at Northern Voice was Music 2.0 by Colin Brumelle from Bryght. It is crazy how the music industry has changed so drastically over the past couple years. For me personally before I got my iPod I was stuck in a music rut. I was listening to the same cds I had been listening to for years and the only new stuff I heard was the same cheese ball top 40 that was played

nv06 - moosecamp

2006-02-11T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today was Moose Camp for Northern Voice which was jam packed with workshop style presentations. I even got a cute shirt that says “bloggable”.#1 Personal Media OutletThe first workshop I went to focused on the citizen journalism aspect of blogging. A great book on this is “We the Media” by Dan Gilmour, which is next on my long list of books to read. John Hartman was a great start, with some

northern voice

2006-02-02T18:58:00.000-08:00

i am heading to my first "blog conference" in vancouver next weekend called northern voice. not to sure what to expect but some of the seminars/talks sound really interesting, including:dave sifry from the blog search technoratisome techy things (design, podcasting etc)grass roots journalismblogs and the lawand a bunch moremy sister ash is going too. i will be sure to jot down some key things on

politicians in highpark?

2006-01-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

I have been reading a few posts/articles (copyrightwatch cbc star blog geist g&m ae witnm) about an incident - an MP candidate (Sarmite Bulte) in the Toronto High Park area has accepted a recording-industry (lobbyists) "donation" for her campaign. A large group of prominent recording industry heads (while their Cdn affiliates) are throwing a fund raiser for her campaign. She is the only one the

c'est moi

2006-01-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

gastronome: a lover of good food and drink.(and because of this characteristic I am off to play badminton)

errymay hristmascay

2005-12-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

just having a great chrismas day with momma, sistas and mike! hope you are having a merry day!for a great podcast and some christmas giggling download Ricky Gervais' (from "the office" UK) podcast here

games games games

2005-12-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

this is the key to a nice holiday.happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you....happy birthday pops (50th!), momma (50th!) and ash (27th), happy birthday to you

how do you blog?

2005-12-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

To add some context I discovered this wonderful post on ITGarage which led me the entire collection over at Sandhill Trek. (note: read the article from the bottom of the page to the top) The question posed was "How do you blog?" here is a snipit: I blog as if there are readers, listeners, viewers... people with whom I am communicating. I blog as a member of a community. I use a few

spreading the green party love

2005-12-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

the countess wants me to spread the word......please sign this petition to allow the green party leader Jim Harris to be heard in the 2006 election debate. in 2004 just over 4% of canadians supported the green party - including me! the green's view has the right to be heard also! plus i think it will help the debate to have some real and important issues raised.sign here s'il vous plait"I don't

wiki-law

2005-12-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well I just found out about this new web resource Wikilaw. This is similar to wikipedia but as a legal resource - plus it is free. I just think this is a great idea and a way to deliver legal knowledge to all real life terms/language. I'll be sure to check it out and contribute what I can in the realm of IP (but i think it is US law - so my knowledge may be somewhat limited - but I am just going

generation @

2005-12-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

Just reading an article that made me laugh while looking around my current situation. A morning in the life of a "generation @": Get up and make coffee. Turn on my just downloaded podcast - this one happens to be a interview with Omid Kordestani (man on the biz side of Google). Turn on the tv (but it is on mute) since Leo Laporte (a host of another fav podcast twit) is supposed to be on Regis

free speech in it's true sense

2005-12-06T23:11:00.000-08:00

I was just listening to tWiT's podcast and they were mentioning a blog posting that has created a bad wave towards a bad internet company.here is the linkin brief the guy bought a $3K professional camera from an online shop. rightfully, he called the camera shop to check on his status a couple days later. at first they tried to sell him some more stuff and then continued dinking him around like

bnl lead the way

2005-12-03T19:07:00.000-08:00

it's great to see the Canadian Barenaked Ladies being innovative leaders and release their new Christmas Album as a USB stick called Barenaked on a Stick. It has an mp3 version of the album, cool artwork (which I'm assuming is iPod compatible) and other features (I think it may be helpful to think of dvd v. vhs - in that the dvd version usually has a whole bunch of cool extras and stuff). Plus

coolio!

2005-12-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

just heard about this new podcast by a cute tech chica: amber mac. She also has a little video show on her site aswell, that I like better then the podcast since it talks about a bunch of different new things in tech as opposed to just 20 min on one web application. Just thought it was such a refreshing change from all the guy tech casts -- Tech casts are always mentionning that their audience is

computational oragami

2005-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

I was listening to my nightly podcast and normally the voice of a comp geek always puts me in a deep sleep - but not this time. It was Robert Lang talking about his crazy computational oragami. I usually just think of oragami as arts & crafts - and that crane always comes to mind. But apparantley there is a whole math/science devoted to this stuff. If you recall oragami is when you make a figure

open source patents

2005-11-21T23:04:00.000-08:00

A while ago I started thinking about how to put a legal spin on open source and patents......what would the legal aspect be around the licensing concept of an "open source patent"? It would be like open source software but for patents, with the idea being that people can use and build off of the invention endlessly, so long as other people can build on any of their improvements license free. I

New Music Canada - Put It In Your Ear

2005-11-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

I am probably the last one to know about this website but just in case here is the link and scoop:the linkthe scoop:you can listen to free streams of hundreds of awesome Canadian artists. If you are feeling a bit lost just check out the top 5 songs of the day in the corner and go from there. I personally like the Pop --> "singer song writer" category and the Pop --> "space pop" category. I've

Got a bad Sony cd? (where bad = rootkit drm)

2005-11-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

Due the rootkit fiasco Sony has agreed to replace all it's rootkit CDs with DRM-free CDs or MP3s of the cd. It is great that all this stems from one blogger's post. Click here for that bloglink. This will hopefully send a big PR message to all companies looking to embrace DRM and other sneaky tools to stop those "evil pirates" (or just use code to grant themselves more IP rights then they have

great lil green machine grants some IT to all

2005-11-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

In the summer I remember reading an article about MIT developping a cheap computer which would allow everyone to access the power of computing - so I was pleased to see that the $100 green machine laptop was showcased at the UN Information Society summit. It is a great little machine: *super durable (made of rubber) with a little handle*low power*you wind it up to make it work (like old school

bloggers could get paid for a sweet post

2005-11-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

here is a short article from WIRED:- - -The news gets casual: A media website scheduled to debut Wednesday will seek to blend traditional journalism with the freeform commentary developed through blogs.Some 70 web journalists, including Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, have agreed to participate in OSM — short for Open Source Media.OSM will

let's get more women riding the podcast wave!

2005-11-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

This article from Wired explains how women are missing from the podcast scene -- with a overwhelming majority of the podcasters and listeners men it will greatly affect what is being podcasted, what podcasts get sponsors and what podcasts get popular. They blame it on the fact that most tech geeks are men (and since it is a new medium they tend to jump on it first) and that there are some creeps

the biz of podcasting

2005-11-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

this is cool article summarizing the podcast convention that took place last week. it poses the question --> should podcasts, these great means of content distribution, uninfluenced by big media and advertisers (well mostly), take on a biz model? hmmm - not sure if this would create the same results as radio and television simply for the fact that it is cheap and easy to create and distribute

should the authorities be able to snoop through your online activity?

2005-11-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

If that thought causes you some concern then write to parliament about the new Lawful Access Bill coming soon. here is a good cbc radio 1 clip on micheal geists blog. he is a law prof at u of ottawa who specializes in internet law. I think that this seems a little to american for me. as mentioned in the clip it imposes higher costs on isp's and grants access to people's personal information

oh where oh where do the webpages go?

2005-11-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

don't you just hate it when you save a webpage address but when you go and check it it's gone? It usually is not a problem when it is cached - but otherwise your out of luck. I know that there is an Internet Archive, but how does that work - can you just enter the url into a portal or something? Actually you should check out that site. It is a great non-profit project that is archiving the

Another on my fav topic

2005-11-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

check this article for a great summary on the Google print debacle. (by a great law prof Lawrence Lessig)Google is faced with a huge lawsuit from both the Publishers and Authors of books - merely for "scanning" their books in order to index them for their search engine. The way that the copyright act in the US (and Cda) is set up is that making a "copy" of any work is infringement, subject to

MPAA strikes again (UPDATE)

2005-11-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

First Posted on Nov 2:Yeah suing a grandpa for $600,000 because his grandson downloaded 4 movies on the net seems proportional and just!Way to go mpaa!are they forgeting who ends up padding the pockets of their big fat wallets --> yeah the fans, the music and movie lovers! so back off and go produce something GOOD!UPDATE:check the nice offer to settle. They offered to settle the case for $4000 -

Open Source still a Money Maker?

2005-11-06T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm about to enter into the IP world as a real grown up - so I always love articles that put some pragmatic sense to values I believe in, such as open source software. I think that I will have an opportunity to try some work in the IP management area so I naturally wanted to check into some open source software licenses to see what was going on behind the scenes. I stumbled across this article on

Useless Facts

2005-11-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

My jeopardy team is prepping for the big game. Our strategy is to circulate 1 useless fact a day.Here is what we have so far:UF #1: Did you know guinea pigs and rabbits don't sweat?UF #2: Did you know that a banana isn't a fruit? Rather it is the worlds biggest spice!UF #3: The volume of the Earth's moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific OceanUF#4: Canada is a native word meaning "big

A Proud Daughter

2005-11-01T22:52:00.000-08:00

nice to read that a great man is doing great things for his community! check out thisarticle!great work pops!Categories: father, smoothie, addCategories: mylife

bad bad sony

2005-10-31T22:20:00.000-08:00

thought this was an interesting articlehold on.....

we the media

2005-10-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

As I am a new blogger I've just been reading up on grassroots journalism via blogs and how it is sweeping the Big Media.My next book for the reading is on the same topic: We, The Media by Dan Gilmor

Quantum Computing

2005-10-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well again stumbled over another great article on the Wired website. The article indicates that the Auzzies have made a big step towards quantum computing by slowing down light and storing some info on it -- ie: making a quantum memory. I've never actually studied on the 'quantum' level....but was really interested in doing so after seeing the movie "What the bleep to we know", which is sort of a

law and DB intersection

2005-10-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

note to self: check into the DB protection and law (Cda and US).....and check into the issues between data suppliers and the application vendors. I was reading an article by Tim O'Reilly explaining what Web 2.0 is and it piqued my DB radar. Before law school I did my undergrad in Math and Computer Science so I am always hungry for more tech stuff since most of my days are spent filling my law

students speak up....and are heard

2005-09-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Just came across this aritcle on Wired.....thought it was a neat piece of evidence to illustrate the unique communicative power of the internet. it just is a new time.