E-TIPS

The purchase of DoubleClick, the world's No 1 digital ad-serving company, by Google, the world's largest search engine, has brought calls from industry giants Microsoft and AT&T, and a policy watchdog, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), for Federal Trade Commission (FTC) review of the acquisition.

In a landmark case handed down earlier in April, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) has awarded an employee of a public sector employer in Wales damages and costs because her employer had monitored her personal Internet usage and her telephone call activity.

After a public consultation process, the Ontario Government has introduced amendments to the Education Act which will have the effect of abandoning zero tolerance regulation of behaviour in the schools and which, among other proposals, will add bullying and cyber-bullying to the list of infractions for which suspension from school must be considered.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada (Commissioner) has found that six Canadian banks did not contravene federal privacy law by disclosing their customers' personal information to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a financial industry-owned messaging and transaction-handling cooperative based in Belgium. The ruling contrasts with the findings of some EU data protection commissioners who have concluded that SWIFT breached their respective data protection laws.

The Alberta Information & Privacy Commissioner (Commissioner) has released a decision that considers the countervailing interests of privacy and security in a public place – namely, a men's locker room in a sports centre.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that a US prohibition on online gambling unfairly targets offshore casinos, thereby opening the door to sanctions by WTO members against the US.

The Federal Court of Canada recently reviewed a decision of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) which had ruled that the combination psoriasis medicine Dovobet was being sold at an excessive price by Leo Pharma Inc (Leo Pharma). Dovobet contains two active ingredients: antipsoriadic calcipotriol and betamethasone dipropionate. The individual components are marketed separately as Dovonex and Diprosone (or Diprolene), respectively.

The European Commission (EC) recently set out its vision, in the form of a Communication to the European Parliament and to the Council, for a fresh look at the various options to overhaul the current patent system in Europe.

US regulators at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have created new rules aimed at preventing data thefts from phone companies – the practice known as "pretexting", by which consumer information is disclosed to unauthorized third parties.

On March 20, 2007, Justice Roger Hughes of the Federal Court of Canada released an important decision involving five applications for judicial review (four regarding the medicine ramipril and one regarding the medicine desmopressin). The decision may be the first to apply and elaborate on the reasons for judgment in the Supreme Court of Canada case of AstraZeneca Canada Inc v Canada (Minister of Health), [2006] 2 SCR 560 (noted in a previous issue of E-TIPS®, November 8, 2006, Vol 5 No 10, "Statutory Freeze Period Sought by Innovator Drug Company Under NOC Regulations Denied by Supreme Court of Canada").

Single letter marks have generally been thought to afford a limited degree of protection on the assumption that it would be difficult to develop goodwill and consumer recognition in relation to them. However, recent trade-mark litigation in the Federal Court of Canada involving automotive brands has proven to be the exception to that rule.

Several American technology companies including Microsoft and Google are seeking regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to offer high-speed Internet service over unused TV airwaves. However, US television broadcasters are mounting significant resistance to this proposal, claiming that this service could interfere with existing TV signals.

On March 13, 2007, entertainment giant Viacom Inc (Viacom), the owner of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and other cable networks, filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit against the video-sharing web site YouTube and its corporate owner, Google Inc (Google). In addition to damages, the lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement. Viacom alleges that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming have been available on YouTube and that the clips have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

As previously reported, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have been at odds over the legality of patent settlement agreements (see E-TIPS®, "Questions Remain Over the Legality of Patent Settlement Agreements", Vol 5, No 5, August 30, 2006). Under a patent settlement agreement of the type at issue, a branded manufacturer pays a generic manufacturer to delay the market entry of a lower priced generic.

The Copyright Board Canada (Board) has issued a decision regarding the downloading of music from online music services in Canada.

As reported in the National Post recently, CanWest Mediaworks Inc, the owner of the National Post (CanWest), has launched an action in the Federal Court of Canada for an order compelling the federal Minister of Health and the Attorney General to enforce the existing rules against direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in pharmaceuticals.

The Federal Court of Canada has dismissed the motion of Apotex Inc (Apotex) for judicial review of the Regulations Amending the Food and Drug Regulations (Data Protection) (Data Protection Regulations) (Apotex Inc v Canada (Governor in Council), 2007 FC 232, Court File No T-2047-06). 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.

The Federal government has introduced Bill C-47, the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act to provide additional intellectual property protection for Olympic trade-marks and symbols associated with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games (2010 Games).

In the recent case of In re: Jason Reynoso (No 04-17190), the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Court) upheld a decision of the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, and found that a legal software provider participated in the unauthorized practice of law.

At the recent annual media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) in Las Vegas, it was reported that the growing trend of web-based collaboration is encouraging leading brand name owners to engage with customers to the point that the customers "truly own [our] brands and our brand messages".