E-TIPS

Ontario's Privacy Commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, has called on the Ontario Government to take legislative action against identity theft. In issuing this challenge, the Commissioner's statement was apparently prompted by an earlier call by the Ontario Minister of Government Services for legislative action by the federal government to require banks and retailers to notify customers when their data has been compromised.

Richard Thomas, the UK Information Commissioner, recently gave the keynote address at the International Association of Privacy Professionals in Washington, and called on the international community to achieve a more harmonized and consistent approach to privacy law.

On January 23, 2007, the Minister of Health published a Draft Guidance Document (Guidance Document) on the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations. When finalized, it will provide assistance to industry and health care professionals on how to comply with governing statutes and regulations, but will not have the force of law. The contents were developed in order to clarify the amendments to the Patented Medicine (Notice of Compliance) Regulations published in the Canada Gazette II on October 18, 2006.

A US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee recently held hearings ("American Innovation at Risk: The Case for Patent Reform") to examine intellectual property laws and consider fundamental changes to the way that patents are awarded. The Subcommittee heard the testimony of four witnesses who criticized the existing patent system for awarding too many patents of poor quality, in that the inventions were not particularly novel or that they were somewhat obvious. The speakers asserted that poor quality patents lead to more litigation and stifle innovation.

The Federal Court of Canada has found that the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) gives the Privacy Commissioner jurisdiction to investigate complaints relating to transborder flows of personal information.

The Attorney General of Canada has failed in an attempt to strike the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association's (CGPA) application for judicial review of the data protection provisions of the Food and Drug Regulations, CRC c 870 as amended by the Regulations Amending the Food and Drug Regulations (New Regulations). (For more information regarding the application, see E-TIPS®, "Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association Challenges the Regulations Amending the Food and Drug Regulations (Data Protection)" Vol 5, No 12, December 6, 2006).

As a result of a recent Federal Court of Appeal decision (Her Majesty The Queen v Dawn's Place Ltd, 2006 FCA 349), federal goods and services tax (GST) must be collected on subscription or access fees charged to foreigners via Canadian web sites. Canadian web site owners are therefore now facing an obligation to collect GST on membership subscriptions to their web sites from residents and non-residents alike.

Two bills recently introduced in the US Congress could significantly affect the research, development, and commercialization of biotechnology products. First, a trio of legislators introduced the Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act, a bill that would authorize the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to approve biogeneric drugs. Currently, the FDA has no express statutory authority to do so.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found that it was appropriate, and not a breach of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), for a domain registrar to request that a web site operator provide a copy of his driver's licence or passport in order to change the administration e-mail address for the web site domain name.

In Wansink v Telus Communications Inc (2007 FCA 21), the Federal Court of Appeal found that Telus' collection of its employees' voiceprints was permitted under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Two new computer databases relating to human metabolism appear to represent important contributions to the field of bioinformatics and will likely have a significant impact on disease diagnosis and treatment.

For the past 20 years, daylight savings time (DST) in North America has come and gone uniformly and most Canadians have reset their clocks on the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October. Next month, however, this practice will change in Canada in order to give consistency with a change in US practice.

IBM Corporation (IBM), a recognized technological pioneer and one of the world's largest employers, has spoken out in favour of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007, HR 493. The Bill, which aims to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information regarding health insurance and employment, was introduced in the US House of Representatives in January and was then referred to the Congressional Education and Labor Committee for review.

Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal in Pfizer Canada Inc v Canada (Minister of Health) and Ratiopharm Inc was recently denied. The case involved a rarely visited area of Canadian patent law – the validity of selection patents.

As part of an ongoing dispute between Fairmont Resort Properties Inc (FRP) and Fairmont Hotels Inc and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts Inc (collectively, FH), FRP brought an application under section 12 of the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) asking the Director of Corporations Canada (CBCA Director) to order FH to change their corporate names because of the risk of confusion with FRP's name.

Apple Inc and Apple Corps Ltd issued a joint press release on February 5, 2007, announcing that the parties had entered into an agreement regarding the use of the name "apple" and the companies' apple logos. Disputes between the two companies over the names and logos have been going on for almost 30 years. Apple Corps Ltd, the guardian of the Beatles' music, first sued what was then Apple Computer Inc for trade-mark infringement in 1978. In 1981, the computer maker paid $80,000 and agreed not to enter the music business.

On December 22, 2006, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a report on Canada's pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies. The report is the first in a series of case studies describing and analyzing the pharmaceutical policies of selected OECD countries with a view to evaluating the impact of those policies.

With its much anticipated decision in MedImmune v Genentech, the US Supreme Court has paved the way for licensees to challenge the validity of the patents they license (for a summary of the issues in dispute see E-TIPS®, "Does a US Patent Licensee Have Standing to Invalidate its Licensor's Patent?" Vol 5, No 9, October 25, 2006).

It appears that a recent widespread data security breach will attract the attention of federal privacy officials in Canada. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) has filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (Commissioner) under section 11 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) asking the Commissioner to investigate the security breach which was widely reported to have exposed personal information of customers of Winners Merchants International LP (Winners) in Canada.

Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal of a summary judgment decision involving Claim 6 of US Patent No. 5,336,691, owned by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc (Ortho), a claim for a combination of two known pain relievers, tramadol and acetaminophen at a ratio of "about 1:5".