E-TIPS

Following an investigation triggered by police discoveries of business and personal information under suspicious circumstances, the Alberta Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) has found that three local businesses failed to protect personal information in their custody.

Electronic voting machines have been the centre of controversy in US politics since their introduction - the controversy stemming primarily from the potential risk of result tampering and a lack of paper records.

In a decision reported in an earlier issue of E-TIPSâ„¢ (Vol 3, No 13, December 8, 2004), the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that a phone company (Telus) had infringed federal privacy law (PIPEDA) by failing to inform first-time telephone subscribers of ancillary uses that would be made of their personal information. The Court has now issued its remedy in the case, Englander v Telus Communications Inc.

Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) came into force on November 1, 2004 (E-TIPSâ„¢, Vol 3, No 11, November 10, 2004). It regulates the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information by health information custodians within the Ontario health care system.

More than 30 years after Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau pronounced that the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation, the Supreme Court of Canada has found that it has no business in its living rooms either.

The open-source software movement has received some substantial boosts recently.

The Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) has decided on national security grounds to extend its review of IBM Corp's proposed $1.75 billion deal with Lenovo Group Ltd (Lenovo), China's largest PC manufacturer.

Ontario's Smart Systems for Health Agency (SSHA) has welcomed a new framework for coordinating the province's electronic health activities.

When a former Delta Airlines flight attendant posted uniformed pictures of herself to the Internet, she had no idea that the penalty for such conduct would be her job. Unfortunately, her experience is hardly unique. From Iqaluit to Houston, from Edinburgh to Winnipeg, new information and communications technologies are blurring the lines between traditional notions of 'workspace' and 'personal space' and igniting renewed debate about the boundaries of employee freedom of expression and privacy. It's a debate that may seem one-sided to the individuals who have lost their jobs for reasons related to their blogging activities.

The US Copyright Office is seeking submissions from the public on how the government should deal with "orphan works". Orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or impossible to locate. As a result, the works effectively become inaccessible to the public, as permission to use them cannot be obtained. Where good faith attempts to locate the copyright holder are unsuccessful, the potential users are reluctant to make use of the work for fear of being sued for infringement in the future.

The Canadian Government has taken the unusual step of filing an amicus curiae brief with the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Appeals Court) in patent litigation involving an infringement claim by NTP Inc against Research in Motion Inc (RIM) of Waterloo, Ontario. At issue are alleged infringements involving RIM's ubiquitous BlackBerry® wireless platform.

A New York trial judge has ruled that evidence gleaned from a car's "black box" is admissible in a second-degree murder trial against two men involved in a fatal three-car collision in Nassau County, New York.

On January 21, 2005, the European Patent Office (EPO) held that the second of three patents in a series owned in part by Myriad Genetics Inc (Myriad) of Salt Lake City should be narrowed from the approximately 30 claims contained in its application to three. The patents cover different aspects of the human BRCA1 gene and relate to the diagnosis and of breast and ovarian cancer.

The Canadian Government recently published proposed amendments to the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations and the Food and Drug Regulations dealing specifically with data protection.

In December, a court in Nanterre ruled that Google infringed the trade-mark rights of the hotel chain Le Meridien by allowing Le Meridien's competitors to bid on keyword advertising. The ads placed by the winning bidder were triggered by a user of the search engine employing the Le Meridien trade-marks in a search. The French court ordered Google to cease its practice, failing which it will face a fine for each day that it fails to comply with the order. A Google representative indicated that it will appeal. In a previous court case in France brought by Louis Vuitton, the plaintiff was also successful against Google.

On December 22, 2004, the European Court of First Instance (Court) ordered Microsoft Corp (Microsoft) to comply with the penalties previously imposed by the European Commission (Commission) in its landmark antitrust ruling of last March.

It is settled trade-mark law in the US that a defendant can assert the affirmative defense of "fair use" to avoid liability in an infringement suit. Until recently, however, it was unsettled whether this defense was available if the contested use caused confusion with the owner's trade-mark.

Technology that seemed like science fiction only a few years ago has become part of our everyday lives. The low cost and availability of wireless networking, digital photography and global positioning system (GPS) technology has led to new and exciting applications apart from those originally conceived by their inventors. Here are two recent examples of new uses that may confront us in 2005.

On December 13th, 2004, the Federal Government introduced Bill C-37 which, if it becomes law, should contribute to a quieter dinner hour for many Canadian households. The Bill would amend the Telecommunications Act and authorize the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to establish, maintain and update a national and central "do-not-call list". Canadian residential telephone subscribers who choose not to receive telephone solicitation may add their names to the list.

US subscription-based satellite radio soon may be legally available in Canada. Recently, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) heard applications from Canadian Satellite Radio and Sirius Canada (a joint venture of Sirius Radio, Standard Radio and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) for licences to provide US subscription-based satellite radio service in Canada.