Limitations in Intellectual Property: The Time is Out of Joint

The question whether a right is barred through effluxion of time is one that should be easily ascertained and understood. This is as true for intellectual properly law as for any other area. The laws establishing copyrights, patents, designs, trademarks, plant breeders\u27 rights and integrated circuit topography rights do not, however, live up to this standard. Instead they create traps for both common and civil lawyers. The author argues that the present confusion should be eliminated by the passage of a single federal limitation statute applying to all intellectual property and drawing from the principles found in the more recently reformed provincial limitation laws

Clerical Errors in the Patent Office

This paper discusses how clerical errors made in documents relating to patents should be dealt with. It takes as its cue a recent case that overturned the Canadian Patent Office’s refusal to correct an error – a patent agent’s supply of the wrong serial number of a patent when remitting maintenance fees – that resulted in the patent automatically lapsing. Patent offices these days claim to be “client-centric” but their behaviour often belies their puffery. The paper looks broadly at the concept of clerical error, and compares how a client-centric organization might deal with such mistakes in paperwork with the Office’s actual conduct. It concludes that the Canadian patent office has much to do if its assertion of customer service is to match reality

Case Comment: Smyth v. Szep Unsettling Settlements: Of Unconscionability and Other Things

The recent decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Smyth v. Szep once again canvasses the validity of releases signed by injured victims in favour of insurance companies and once again plunges into the murky waters of contractual unconscionability. Both issues have become more or less permanent squatters on judicial calendars throughout North America, and it seems worthwhile to consider why this is so and whether something can be done to reduce their tenure at least in Canada

The National Treatment Requirements of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions [Part 2]

States are constantly engaged in the process of revising or amending their copyright laws to cope with the pressures of new technologies and the demands of various classes of persons or entities who wish to acquire new rights over copyright works. Since most states are now parties to either or both the Revised Berne Convention (RBC) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC), they are aware that any reform of their laws must comply with the obligations imposed by these Conventions. Currently the United States, which is bound only by the UCC, is considering what changes may be necessary to its law in order that it may accede to the RBC and thus gain the improved international protection provided by the latter Convention. In all such cases, an important preliminary question states must face is: how far are they bound to extend the benefit and protection of their copyright law in favour of other members of either Convention