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snIP/ITs Blog Monthly Review

Below is our Month in Review for March, highlighting posts on our snIP/ITs blog. You can follow the links to any of these specific posts, or you can visit the blog at www.canadiantechlawblog.com.

PlentyOfFish Hooked by Anti-Spam Legislation
By Roland Hung on March 31st, 2015

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (“CASL”) came into force on July 1, 2014, creating new requirements for sending commercial electronic messages (“CEM”). A non-compliant business risks having “administrative monetary penalties” (or “AMPs,”, which are essentially fines) levied against it by the CRTC. However, until recently, there has been no guidance on how aggressively CASL would be enforced, the scope of Notices of Violations, or how AMPs would be determined, and the scope of such. Businesses were stuck in a murky regulatory regime. Continue Reading

Safari workaround claimants to get their day in UK court against Google: Google Inc v Vidal-Hall
By Barry Sookman on March 31st, 2015

The ‘Safari workaround’ has cost Google millions. In 2012, it paid a civil penalty of US$22.5 million to settle charges brought by the US FTC that Google misrepresented to users of the Safari browser that it would not place tracking cookies or serve targeted advertisements to those users. In 2013 it paid US$17 million to settle US state consumer-based actions brought by State AGs. Continue Reading

Federal Court Judge Dismisses Final Prohibition Application in CIALIS PM(NOC) Proceeding
By Bart Nowak and David Tait on March 30th, 2015

On February 23, 2015, the Federal Court released its judgment in the latest of three PM(NOC) proceedings relating to Eli Lilly’s CIALIS (tadalafil) patents. The previous two decisions were discussed in snIP/ITs posted on January 26, 2015 and March 30, 2015. Continue Reading

Canada PM(NOC) Decision: Federal Court Judge Criticizes “Very Sketchy” Disclosure in a CIALIS Patent
By Bart Nowak and David Tait on March 30th, 2015

On February 2, 2015 Justice de Montigny of the Federal Court released his judgment and reasons in Eli Lilly Canada Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals ULC, 2015 FC 125, dismissing Lilly’s application for an order prohibiting the Minister of Health from issuing a Notice of Compliance to Mylan until the expiry of Canadian Patent No. 2,371,684 (the “‘684 Patent”). The ‘684 Patent claims a dosage form of tadalafil and its use to treat erectile dysfunction (“ED”). This decision is the second in a series of three prohibition applications by Lilly relating to its tadalafil patents. Continue Reading

AMF Now Requires Quebec Virtual Currency ATMs and Trading Platforms to be Licensed
By Claire Gowdy, Ana Badour and Marjolaine Hémond Hotte on March 9th, 2015

In Quebec, a business that operates a virtual currency automated teller machine, such as a bitcoin ATM, or that provides a platform for trading virtual currencies, will now be required to obtain a license under the Money-Services Businesses Act (the “Act”). On February 12th, 2015, the Autorité des marchés financiers (the “AMF”) announced this change in a news release and published amendments to the Policy Statement to the Act, which clarified that “making available to the public a means of purchasing, with cash, virtual money from an automated distributor, without the intervention of a natural person” constitutes operating an automated teller machine for the purposes of the Act. Continue Reading

Defamation in the Blogosphere: Baglow v Smith
By Roland Hung and Kevin Stenner on March 9th, 2015

In introduction to Baglow v. Smith, 2015 ONSC 1175 [“Baglow”], an action for defamation involving political bloggers, Madam Justice Polowin described political debate in the Internet blogosphere as, “rude, aggressive, sarcastic, hyperbolic, insulting, caustic and/or vulgar.” She further stated that, “it is not for the faint of heart.” Baglow is a case around the alleged defamation of the plaintiff through a blog post by one of the defendants. The plaintiff felt that the blog post went “too far” and sought to hold the blog post author, and the moderators of the message board, liable for defamation. Continue Reading