Legal Commentary

Microsoft says go direct to Windows 7

Posted on May 20, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: In a recent speech Bill Veghte - senior vice president, Windows business, for Microsoft - advised that if a business is now in the testing phase to upgrade from XP to Vista, they should stop and go direct to Windows 7...

London a prime location - let us make cake

Posted on May 19, 2009
The London Free Press series  Beyond Crisis: A Free Press series exploring our region’s next economy has an article today entitled Prime Location for Changes that explores the thought that one of London’s key strengths going into the next economy is our location...

eBay not liable for fakes in France

Posted on May 15, 2009
Several sources are reporting that a French court refused to hold eBay responsible for counterfeit L’Oreal products sold on its site.  That is contrary to earlier French cases - but consistent with the North American position. eBay does suspend sales of counterfeit goods when advised of them by the rightful manufacturer, but it does not pre-screen [...

Copyright - issues to ponder

Posted on May 14, 2009
Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a post entitled  How Long Can You Go Without Infringing On Copyright? that  points to a post on Dvorak.org, discussing how hard it is to not infringe on copyrights, noting that the original system was not built for a digital world...

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Maximizing your online presence

Posted on May 13, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows: That was the title of a presentation I attended this morning at the London TechAlliance breakfast club series. David Ciccarelli of Voices.com was the presenter. He is well qualified to present, as he has built his business using these methods...

Why lawyers get fired

Posted on May 12, 2009
Take a look at this blog entry entitled Quick ways to get fired as a lawyer.  Even though these may seem to be obvious things not to do, the author claims to have witnessed them all.

Destroy sensitive info before you toss it

Posted on May 11, 2009
For the London Free Press - May 11, 2009 Read this on Canoe In R. v. Patrick, released by the Supreme Court of Canada last month, the court considered whether one has a reasonable expectation of privacy over the contents of garbage once it’s put out at the curb...

New Kindle debuts - but not in Canada

Posted on May 07, 2009
I was just about to write a post on how this is just another example of stuff we can’t get in Canada - and discovered that Steven Matthews already commented on this in a Slaw post.  He says in part: I would really love to have a Kindle. really.  And this story from the Silicon Alley [...

Data directive expansion creates concern

Posted on May 05, 2009
For the London Free Press - May 4, 2009 Read this on Canoe The new European Data Retention Directive requires Internet service providers in Europe to retain information about all e-mails and VOIP calls made by all customers for at least one year. The directive also allows police and many other public bodies access to that data...

Canada introduces anti-spam bill - The Electronic Commerce Protection Act

Posted on April 28, 2009
A bill has been introduced that is intended to cut down on email spam originating from Canada.  I’ll have more to say about this later - but for now, here are some links to commentary by Michael Geist.  Michael’s thoughts on the bill are worth a look as he was on a task force a [...

Privacy issues not always practical

Posted on April 27, 2009
For the London Free Press - April 27, 2009 Read this on Canoe Services that take continuous photographs along public streets raise privacy issues. Google Street View is the most popular, but by no means the only company doing that. While these privacy issues are real, we must remain practical about their application of such technology...

EU CTM (Community trade-mark) fees lowered

Posted on April 24, 2009
The official filing/registration fees for CTM trade-marks is being lowered by 40%.   A CTM is 1 trade-mark application that gets it registered in all EU countries.   Considering the number of countries that entails, the cost to register a CTM is quite reasonable.

BC Election candidate quits over racy Facebook photos

Posted on April 23, 2009
A BC NDP candidate just dropped out of the election because of some racy photos on his Facebook page. Mike Masnick of Techdirt points out that he had a post 3 years ago that suggested this might happen based on an article I wrote at the time. Mike comments that we have not yet reached the point where [...

Law and Technology

Posted on April 22, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Recent Slaw posts talk about Blackberry?s, the ABA Techshow, social media, online ADR, and online legal resources. Richard Susskind talks about how technology is fundamentally changing the practice of law, and how we will provide services in the future...

Study shows downloaders buy more music

Posted on April 21, 2009
Michael Geist and Boing Boing both point to a Norwegian study that shows that people who tend to download more music also tend to buy more.  They point out that this is consistent with a previous Canadian study.

Web privacy, disclosure a tussle

Posted on April 20, 2009
For the London Free Press - April 20, 2009 Read this on Canoe In recent years, there has been a struggle between the right to privacy and the right to disclosure of information in criminal and civil court actions. The courts have not been consistent in their approach...

TechAlliance and Harrison Pensa bring Jim Carroll to AGM

Posted on April 15, 2009
This years’s TechAlliance AGM and Power Breakfast features Jim Carroll as speaker. Here’s the press release:   FORMER LONDONER TURNED INTERNATIONAL FUTURIST AND AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT TECHALLIANCE EVENT LONDON, ONTARIO, APRIL 15, 2009- TechAlliance, with Harrison Pensa LLP, will host former Londoner and leading international futurist, author, and trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll on Wednesday, May 27 at [...

“Stealing” web content - an example

Posted on April 14, 2009
We all hear about web sites that simply take the content of others and post it as if it is their own - usually to try to make money off ads.   They add no original comment or commentary.  They are commonly referred to as “scraper sites“.  Sometimes they give attribution to the original site and/or [...

Cloud computing requires savvy

Posted on April 13, 2009
For the London Free Press Read this on Canoe TECHNOLOGY: Storing or sharing personal information on remote computers controlled by others is a common practice fraught with potential problems Cloud computing is touted as the solution to many users’ problems — but is cloud computing itself a problem? Cloud computing is not bad per se...

Google’s use of trade-marks as keywords might be infringement

Posted on April 09, 2009
Out-law.com has an article entitled Google’s sale of trade mark as keyword may be ‘use in commerce’, says US Court of Appeals.   The use of the trade-marks of others for either keywords to trigger paid ads, or in the visible ads themselves has been controversial...

Mesh conference

Posted on April 08, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: I attended day 1 of the Mesh conference yesterday. (I had a conflict for today - but a colleague is going in my place.) Some video from the event is already on the Mesh site. The highlight for me was the keynote by Mike [...

Appeal court rules on war of whisky words

Posted on April 06, 2009
For the London Free Press - April 6, 2009 Read this on Canoe SPIRITED ARGUMENT: Geographical indicators aim to protect certain regions’ wine and liquor from imitators With barbecue season fast approaching, the most obvious topic of discussion is trade-marks and alcoholic beverages...

People search engines border on creepiness

Posted on April 03, 2009
PCWorld.ca has a good article entitled People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets. . . And Tell Anyone.  It talks about search engines meant to find information on people, such as www.pipl.com and http://www.spokeo.com/ . They search various public sites to get the information, such as social networking sites, amazon wish lists, flickr, etc...

Ten things I would ban

Posted on April 01, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Here are some things I would ban if I was in charge. (And no - while this is a bit facetious - its not an April fools joke.) What would you add to the list? legal sized paper fax machines paper closing books the phrase ?but we?ve [...

London England anti-terror posters remix

Posted on March 31, 2009
Boing Boing posted a remix challenge to mock the new anti-terror posters I mentioned a few days ago. Some of them are quite good - definitely worth a look.

Guitar manufacturer takes licks

Posted on March 30, 2009
For the London Free Press - March 30, 2009 Read this on Canoe Virtual reality was taken to a new level recently when famous guitar manufacturer, Gibson, sued Activision Publishing, Inc., creators of Guitar Hero, alleging that the video game system infringed upon one of its patents...

.tel open for use - do you have yours?

Posted on March 26, 2009
Check out davidcanton.tel for my first attempt at providing my contact information. I’ve written about this before here and here.  .tel has the potential to become a universal phone book  - but its success depends on wide adoption.  .tel addresses are available from various name registrars...

New London England Anti-terror posters

Posted on March 25, 2009
Thats the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads: Cory Doctorow writes on Boing Boing about the latest anti-terrorist campaign in England. His entire post is a worthwhile read - but to get a flavour of it: The London police have bested their own impressive record for insane and stupid anti-terrorism posters with a new range [...

Ponder Games releases Pufu’s Spiral

Posted on March 24, 2009
London’s Ponder Games has released Pufu’s Spiral: Adventures Around the World, a video game with an environmental theme. It can be downloaded at Bigfish Games, where it is described as: Pufu the penguin is tired of all the snow that surrounds his home, and longs for something different...

Trade-marks not allowed to be merely descriptive

Posted on March 23, 2009
For the London Free Press - March 23, 2009 Read this on Canoe People often think of adopting trade-marks that describe their product or service. But that results in a weak trade-mark and is not allowed under the Trade-marks Act. A trade-mark is used to distinguish one company’s products or services from those of another...

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