E-TIPS

The Government of New Zealand ("New Zealand"), lost its complaint alleging that Virtual Countries, Inc. ("Virtual") had no legitimate interest or rights in the domain name www.newzealand.com. New Zealand further alleged that the name "˜NEW ZEALAND' is their trade and service mark and that Virtual registered the domain name and used it in bad faith.

In its second scoping study of Internet defamation law (the "Report"), amongst other things, the Law Commissioner of England and Wales notes that some companies and their counsel are using the threat of libel suits to pressure Internet Service Providers (ISP) into removing websites set up by disgruntled customers. Rather than complaining to authors of the websites, these companies threaten the ISPs who consider the safest course under the present law is to remove the allegedly defamatory material even if the posted material is in the public interest or true. As such, the Report concludes that the current UK law may violate the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.

In its 23 December 2002 opinion, the U.S. District Court for District of Maryland granted Sun Microsystem's request that Microsoft be forced to include the Java programming language with its Windows operating system. Judge Motz accepted Sun's theory that Microsoft deliberately thwarted the adoption of Java by creating its own unauthorized and incompatible version of Java.

In the last days of 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay in an appeal from a decision of the California Supreme Court for a case that pitted the DVD Copy Control Association (the "Association"), a non-profit group for DVD makers for licensing DVD anti-copying technology to the motion picture industry, against the defendant Matthew Pavlovich and others. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants violated trade secrets by posting decoding software (allowing people to copy DVD content) on the Internet. No patent or copyright infringements were claimed.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Michael Erdle The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found that a courier company's practice of collecting electronic signatures from parcel recipients and posting them on its parcel tracking Web site, along with the recipient's name and address, violates Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams Outsourcing is not new - it has been variously called data processing management, facilities management and service bureau processing.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams It may surprise some people to learn that many companies will spend significant amounts of money and embark on mission critical software development projects without signing a detailed agreement clearly setting out what is to be developed, who owns what and what the respective duties and responsibilities of the parties are.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams Over the past 22 years or so, I have acted for vendors and users of many different forms of technology. In most cases, the vendors and the users are interested in getting the best deal possible at the best price and finishing with the system/software/web site that the user wants and needs. However, that doesn't mean that there can't be some games played along the way.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams Everyone knows now that good quality content is a valuable commodity on the Internet.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams The growth of e-commerce has drawn particular attention to consumer protection issues over the Internet. To assist provinces in drafting new statutes to deal with these issues, the Internet Sales Contract Harmonization Template ("template") was approved in 2001 by federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for consumer affairs.

© 2002, Deeth Williams Wall LLP. All Rights Reserved. By: Amy-Lynne Williams It is a rare company these days that does not allow some form of access to the Internet to their employees.

On December 10, 2002, the High Court of Australia issued its decision in Dow Jones v. Gutnick, affirming the jurisdiction of the courts in the Australian State of Victoria to try a suit brought by Mr. Gutnick against Dow Jones for articles published by the latter on its Internet news service alleging that Mr. Gutnick was a money-launderer and tax evader.

The UK Court of Appeal has issued its decision in Menashe Business Mercantile v. William Hill, a case involving the issue of whether an interactive gaming patent can be enforced against a server located outside the UK. The defendant had operated a gaming system available to computer owners in the UK and supplied customers with a program which allowed their computers to communicate with a host computer outside the UK via the Internet.

Recently, the United States Securities Exchange Commission ("SEC") adopted a new Rule which permits Internet Investment Advisors to register with the SEC. Prior to the new rule, investment advisors who provided advisory services over the Internet were prohibited from registering with the Commission because they did not fall within the provisions of section 203A of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Section 203A prohibits an advisor from registering with the Commission unless they are an advisor with a registered investment company or have more than $25 million of assets under management. As a result, Internet Investment Advisors were generally required to register with every State.

In Thompson v. Mastercard, a class action suit brought against Mastercard, Visa and related banks under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the U.S. Court of Appeals (5th Cir.) affirmed that it was not illegal for credit card companies and banks to process debts incurred by the plaintiffs when they bought "chips" from Internet gambling sites. The Court ruled that the plaintiffs "have not sufficiently alleged "˜the collection of unlawful debt'", and that "RICO, no matter how liberally construed, is not intended to provide a remedy to this class of plaintiff."

Finland's Supreme Court has ruled that taxi drivers must pay royalty fees if they play music in their car while transporting customers. The decision also extends to the radio. Under the ruling, taxi drivers must pay an annual copyright fee of 22 EUROS (about $35 CDN) for playing music while carrying a fare.

In a recent case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the former president and CEO of Internet start-up PacketSwitch.com, Steven A. Ristau was found guilty of fraud, selling unqualified securities and tax evasion. In 1999, Mr. Ristau claimed that his company had developed wireless technology that would allow movies to be viewed up to 12 miles away. No such technology then existed. Mr. Ristau used a nearby hidden off-the-shelf wireless LAN to "demonstrate" the technology to potential investors.

Canada's Justice Minister recently introduced new legislation aimed at cracking down on child pornography and peeping Toms. This legislation responds to public uproar after a Vancouver man who was found not guilty of possessing child pornography on the grounds that his stories had "artistic merit". The law replaces the reference to "artistic merit" with language that requires a demonstration that such material serves the public good and that this public good outweighs the risk of harm. This change is aimed at making it easier to prosecute offenders and more difficult for individuals to claim that their pornography is art.

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals (7th Cir) considered the effect of a bankruptcy sale on a contract to provide a financial-market data service in FutureSource LLC v. Reuters Ltd. The provider, Bridge Information Services, had entered into a contract to provide data to FutureSource, but filed for bankruptcy two years later. Although Reuters purchased the bankrupt provider's assets, the right to receive royalties remained with a third party.

On December 5, 2002, the Canadian Supreme Court (SCC) allowed an appeal by the Commissioner of Patents from a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, which had allowed the patenting of higher life forms. The Respondent had sought to patent a process for producing mice genetically altered to be "susceptible to cancer" (and thus suitable for carcinogenic studies) and the end product of the process (the mice and their offspring). The Commissioner allowed the process claims but refused the product claims; the Respondent in turn sought judicial recourse.