E-TIPS

The Milken Institute, an independent economic think tank, recently released its study of the biotechnology transfer process taking place at universities worldwide. The study, entitled "Mind to Market: A Global Analysis of University Biotechnology Transfer and Commercialization", confirms the importance of intellectual property protection and technology transfer for the viability of the biotechnology industry. For Canadians, the study suggests that Canadian universities lag behind their US counterparts in technology transfer.

A key committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (Committee), has approved a draft proposal of a treaty to protect broadcasting rights. The Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (WIPO Treaty) seeks to prevent broadcasting and cable signals from being stolen and retransmitted elsewhere.

The debate over net neutrality may prevent a massive communications bill from making it through the US Senate. The proposed legislation would bring widespread changes in many areas, including the introduction of copy protection for digital radio broadcasts by embedding a "broadcast flag" in those signals that prevents them from being recorded.

The formerly secret surveillance by US authorities of international financial data via SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) exemplifies the potential for conflict between privacy regulation and anti-terrorism initiatives.

In case it is thought that weblogs are merely a "vanity press" sideshow on the Internet, a recent article in The Financial Times is a reminder that blogging has become part of the financial mainstream.

Health Canada has published the proposed Organic Products Regulations in the Canada Gazette Part I. These long-awaited Regulations will create what amounts to a federal certification scheme for the third-party organic certifying bodies already at work under provincial regulation in British Columbia and Quebec and as a voluntary system in other provinces. The overall scheme will be called the "Canada Organic Regime"

The value of shares in Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb (collectively, Plaintiffs) rose after a US District Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction against Canadian manufacturer Apotex, ruling that it must cease selling its generic version of blood thinner Plavix (clopidogrel bisulphate) until trial, which is expected to take place in January 2007. With $5.9 billion of sales in 2005, Plavix is currently the second best selling drug in the world.

In a recent decision (Telecom Decision CRTC 2006-53), the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has confirmed that Canada's major telephone companies will continue to face pricing and competition controls on their Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.

Xanga.com Inc (Xanga), an online social networking web site, has been fined $1 million by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The discretion of the Canadian Commissioner of Patents to correct errors in official Patent Office records was the subject of a recent Federal Court decision, The Procter & Gamble Company et al v The Commissioner of Patents.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is soon expected to begin reviewing a proposed treaty to prevent the unauthorized retransmission of broadcast signals, called the "Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations". Treaty drafting began in 2003 and it still has not been completed.

The British Columbia Privacy Commissioner has criticized the adoption of municipal by-laws that require businesses to share personal information of their customers with police.

The US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has released its draft five-year strategic plan for 2007 to 2012. The strategic plan sets out these three goals for the upcoming years: (i) the optimization of patent quality and timeliness, (ii) the optimization of trade-mark quality and timeliness, and (iii) the improvement of intellectual property protection and enforcement, domestically and abroad.

US regulators, including state Attorneys General, recently rejected a three-way patent settlement agreement between innovators Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the Canadian generic manufacturer Apotex, relating to the anti-clotting agent drug Plavix. The agreement required approval from both the states Attorney General and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Actors receive a fee each time a commercial they appear in is aired on television or radio. Traditionally, the actors have been compensated according to the rules set out in the Commercials Contract Collective Bargaining Agreement (CCCB Agreement) between the advertising industry's ANA/AAAA Joint Policy Committee on Broadcast Talent Union Regulations and the actor's union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) or the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Internet search engine Google Inc (Google) has announced that it intends to crack down on use of its name as a verb. A representative for the search company recently said: "We think it's important to make the distinction between using the word "˜Google' to describe using Google to search the Internet and using the word "˜google' to generally describe searching the Internet. It has some serious trademark issues".

"Net neutrality" has emerged as new terminology in a growing debate over the future of the Internet. Generally, it describes a philosophy that all web sites should be treated equally so that ISPs cannot restrict users' access to web sites or web-based services. The concept has caused a major rift between big Internet firms such as Google and Yahoo which support it and large telecommunications companies which oppose it.

On a summary motion, a US Court has upheld a declaratory action against the media arm of the Major League Baseball Players' Association (MLBPA) to permit an online fantasy baseball business to continue to use real players' names and their associated baseball statistics.

In an apparent breach of its own privacy policy, America Online (AOL) posted the details of more than 2 million search queries performed by 650,000 of its subscribers between March 1 and May 31, 2006 to a web site. Intended to be used only by AOL researchers, the data was accessible to the general public. The user IDs for each search query posted on the AOL research web site were replaced with anonymous numbers, but some have raised concerns that users could be tracked based upon the content of their queries.

A newly-formed Canadian music rights collective, CSI, has proposed three new tariffs for online music. The proposed tariffs for permanent downloads, subscription-based downloads, and on-demand music streams stand in contrast to claims made by other industry stakeholders, including the Canadian Recording Industry Association, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Apple Canada and Bell Canada, that digital music sales should be treated as record sales and not licences.