Bill S-4, creating new identity theft offences under the Criminal Code, has received Royal Assent and came into force on October 22, 2009. The amendments provide new tools in the prosecution of identity theft and related misconduct. Prosecution of such offences has been problematic, in part because traditional property offences, such as theft, are not easily transferable into the world of intangible property. | MORE

On October 5, 2009, Justice O’Reilly of the Federal Court of Canada held in an infringement action, Eli Lilly Canada Inc v Novopharm Limited, 2009 FC 1018 (Lilly), that Canadian Patent No 2,041,113 (‘113 Patent) was not a valid selection patent. | MORE

On October 21, 2009, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released a regulatory policy, CRTC 2009-657 (Policy), on the review of Internet traffic management practices of Internet service providers (ISPs). The Policy is the CRTC’s framework for determining whether an ISP unfairly discriminates against certain kinds of Internet traffic and content. | MORE

In a widely praised move, the new Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), David Kappos, has rescinded the controversial continuation rules that have been the subject of litigation since shortly after they were published in August 2007 (See E-TIPS® Vol 7, No 20, April 8th, 2009 “US Federal Court of Appeals Approves USPTO’s Patent Rules”). | MORE

As the uses of the Internet grow and the need for storage and processing capacity expands dramatically, some of the largest players in the information marketplace are looking ahead to the implications of continued exponential growth. | MORE

By mid-2010, Internet surfers should begin to see much more exotic scripts as roots for domain names: Russian, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and other non-Latin scripts may be the subject of applications to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names (ICANN), beginning on November 16, 2009. | MORE