Legal Commentary

2011 CES – tablets, tablets, and more tablets

Posted on January 05, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. The annual Consumer Electronics Show is about to start in Las Vegas.   The CES officially runs from January 6 to the 9th, but there are several press conferences today for new product announcements...

Santa’s Privacy Policy

Posted on December 23, 2010
From David Fraser’s Blog: Santa’s privacy policy  This is a must read: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Santa’s Privacy Policy. Hat-tip to @privacyprivee for the link.

Happy Holidays

Posted on December 22, 2010
I would like to wish readers a happy and safe holiday season.   Please enjoy the card, which was created for our firm by a London artist (a higher resolution image is here), and the Harrison Pensa Christmas video.

iPad dooms paper products

Posted on December 20, 2010
For the London Free Press – December 20, 2010 Read this on Canoe Many people, including myself, predicted 2010 would be the year of the tablet computer. Apple has sold millions of iPads since its introduction earlier this year. But competing devices are only now coming to market...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

From spam to copyright, lots of new laws on the way

Posted on December 13, 2010
For the London Free Press – December 13, 2010 Read this on Canoe Proposed legislation could have major implications for businesses, consumers Development and innovation of technology inevitably breeds new laws to regulate that technology. For lawyers practising Information Technology law, there is a considerable amount of potential new law to digest...

Gift Idea – New book by photographer Richard Bain

Posted on December 10, 2010
London photographer Richard Bain has just published a new book featuring images of Ontario vineyards.   This is the latest in a series that have included images of London, of Stratford, and the Thames river.  And if you are looking for something to go along with it, consider an Orchestra London Holiday Gift Pack.

Amabile Christmas concert Saturday

Posted on December 10, 2010
The Amabile Boy’s & Men’s Choirs annual Christmas concert is this Saturday.  (My son is in the choir.)  For those not aware of Amabile: “The continuum and depth that Amabile offers is unparalleled by any other choral organization in Canada...

Harrison Pensa Christmas video

Posted on December 08, 2010
Take a look at our video.  Its not the traditional holiday greeting. Enjoy, and have a happy and safe holiday season. http://www.harrisonpensa.com/xmas.html

Snowstorms and the paperless office

Posted on December 08, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. London is slowly getting back to normal today after effectively being shut down for 2 days due to a massive lake effect snowstorm.  Depending on where you are we have had between 2 and 4 feet of snow since Sunday night...

Rulings allow use of competitor?s name in ads

Posted on December 06, 2010
For the London Free Press – December 6, 2010 Read this on Canoe When advertising your product on the Internet, using the name of a competitor can sometimes increase awareness of your own product. It’s even legal. Recent decisions from British Columbia and Quebec have held that “keyword advertising” using the trademark or name of [...

Electronic Health Records

Posted on December 01, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: eHealth has been a major and controversial topic lately.  A lot of time and effort has been spent on it, as there are many issues such as costs,  privacy, security, and standards...

Supreme Court of Canada – is electricity consumption personal information?

Posted on November 30, 2010
The Supreme Court of Canada just released a decision in R v Gomboc  that dealt with whether the use of a device to measure electricity consumption at a suspected grow-op without a warrant (its purpose was to form the basis to get a warrant) was proper...

Set code of code conduct

Posted on November 29, 2010
For the London Free Press – November 29, 2010 Read this on Canoe It?s important to document your intentions before any code is created It is not unusual for a business to hire someone to create computer code, such as a specialized program, website, or iPhone app...

Steve Jobs action figure victim of cease and desist

Posted on November 24, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Several sources are reporting that a Chinese company called MIC Gadget has stopped selling their Steve Jobs action figure after receiving a nastygram from Apple’s lawyers stating that it violated Apple trademarks and copyrights...

Patent ruling signals new way of doing business

Posted on November 22, 2010
For the London Free Press – November 22, 2010 Read this on Canoe Traditionally, they have been reserved for inventions that are tangible The recent Federal Court of Canada decision in Amazon.com Inc v. the Attorney General of Canada held that a “business method” can be patented in Canada...

DIG – Digital Interactive Gaming conference this week

Posted on November 15, 2010
The annual DIG conference is this Thursday and Friday at the London Convention Centre.  It’s a must attend conference for anyone in the gaming industry.  Harrison Pensa is pleased to be a sponsor of the conference – we are  sponsoring the  networking reception that precedes the VIP dinner on Thrusday...

Responding to negative social media

Posted on November 10, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: I gave a presentation this morning on social media issues at a TechAlliance breakfast club event.  Thought I would share this one slide. If someone posts something about you or your organization that you don’t like, it’s best to so some sober [...

Level of privacy protection under attack

Posted on November 08, 2010
For the London Free Press – November 8, 2010 Read this on Canoe Security: New report uncovers substantial deficiencies in protection by numerous federal agencies When it comes to the protection of privacy, Canada’s federal agencies have some serious changes to make...

Social Media Legal issues and policies

Posted on November 04, 2010
On Wednesday November 10 I will discuss social media issues at a TechAlliance Breakfast Club event entitled Developing a Social Media Policy for your Business.  I’ll talk about: The legal traps of Social Media use. That fuzzy line between work and personal account posts...

Plethora of Pending IT Legislation

Posted on November 03, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Those who practice in the IT area have a lot of potential new law to digest.  The Federal government has several bills in various stages that will affect many businesses and organizations, and all of us as consumers...

Perils of trade-mark co-ownership

Posted on October 26, 2010
ipblog.ca has a good post entitled The Perils of Co-ownership of Intellectual Property that refers to a case where a trade-mark application was held invalid.  The reason – it was registered by one entity in its own name, when it was actually owned jointly by 2 parties.

Facebook privacy fragile

Posted on October 25, 2010
For the London Free Press – October 25, 2010 Read this on Canoe Postings to social network sites can be forced into evidence in legal proceedings It seems like everybody is on Facebook or a similar social networking site. The prevalence of such websites has raised interesting questions relating to the level of privacy that [...

HP Slate 500 – Windows 7 tablet – now official

Posted on October 22, 2010
Many people, including myself, predicted that 2010 would be the year of the tablet.  After speculation that Hewlett Packard might not actually build a Windows 7 tablet, engadget and CNET are reporting that it is indeed arriving. So that means our tablet choice will include (some of these are just arriving, or scheduled to arrive over [...

Symantec Halloween spam warnings

Posted on October 21, 2010
Take a look at this post entitled Don’t Let Halloween Haunt You for examples of spam messages to avoid in case they get through your filters. As I’ve said before, be skeptical about communications that carry either really good news, really bad news, or that require some immediate action to avoid a dire consequence.

Privacy Commissioner finds Google Street contravened privacy laws

Posted on October 20, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. There has been a lot of press over the Privacy Commissioner’s decision that the Google Street View collection of information from unprotected wifi signals breached PIPEDA.  See the press release, and the decision...

University Facebook sanction violates Charter

Posted on October 19, 2010
Brian Bowman has a post on his On the Cutting Edge blog that says an Alberta court ruled that the University of Calgary violated students’ charter rights when it sanctioned them for posting critical comments about a professor on Facebook.  Omar also mentioned it in a Slaw post...

Privacy enforcement transcends all borders

Posted on October 18, 2010
 For the London Free Press – October 18, 2010 Read this on Canoe Global Privacy Enforcement Network aids cross-border co-operation to enforce privacy laws In the age of Facebook and MySpace, privacy issues do not stop at national boundaries. More and more, business relies on a flow of personal information across both national and jurisdictional [...

Why social search should creep you out

Posted on October 14, 2010
Mitch Joel has an excellent post entitled What You Tell a Search Box that talks about the trend to social search (such as the  new Bing / Facebook search results that will factor your facebook friend’s “likes” into your search results)...

Privacy Commissioner troubled by Canadian government practices

Posted on October 13, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. In her annual report to Parliament on the Privacy Act last week, the federal Privacy Commissioner expressed concerns about several issues.  The Privacy Act deals with privacy issues for the Federal government...

Avoiding internet scams

Posted on October 06, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Dan wrote yesterday about what to do if hackers steal your online accounts.  As a companion to that, Yahoo!Canada has an article from Real Simple magazine entitled Scams Even you Could Fall For – And How to Avoid Them...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.