Canada

Selected links from the last week (or so)

1 Comment / Copyright, Designs, Domain names, Internet, Patents, PBR / / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here is a selection of links to IP-related matters I found interesting this week:

Patents

Trade marks

Copyright

Designs

Not categorised

I hope you find something interesting. If you did or have a question, leave a comment or send me an email

Selected links from the last week (or so) Read More »

Canada’s IP and antitrust enforcement guidelines

Leave a Comment / Antitrust / / / , , , , , , ,

The Canadian Competition Bureau has published updated guidelines relating to the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the antitrust (competition) rules.

The Bureau does not presume that the exercise of IP rights violates competition rules but, in assessing whether there are competition law ramifications, it distinguishes between two types of conduct: conduct “involving something more than the mere exercise of the IP right, and those involving the mere exercise of the IP right and nothing else.” Special rules, which may be applied in “very rare circumstances” apply to the latter. While the general competition rules apply to the former.

According to the Canadian firm, Tories, the updated guidelines include consideration relating to:

  • patent litigation settlement arrangements including reverse payment settlements
  • product switching
  • patent assertion entities
  • standard essential patents

Why should someone in Australia care?

For one thing (bearing in mind the ACCC’s challenge to Pfizer’s practices when its Lipitor patent was expiring – judgment is reserved in the appeal), the US Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision this year on how US antitrust laws apply to reverse payment settlements.

For another thing, following the Competition Review here in Australia:

  • the Government announced its intention to implement the Harper Review’s recommendation that s 51(3) be repealed and, if that happens, the ACCC is supposed to produce its own guidelines; and
  • in the meantime, at the Government’s direction, the Productivity Commission is undertaking a review of Intellectual Property Arrangements including its alleged anti-competitive effects.[1]

Lid dip: Peter Willis

  1. The draft report is due to published “any day now”.  ?

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The Canadian copyright ‘pentalogy’

Leave a Comment / Copyright / / / , , , , ,

Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down 5 decisions on the same day relating to fair dealing and other issues arising from digital transmission of copyright material.

In a number of respects, its decisions are directly opposite to conclusions that have been reached by our High Court (one example – but it appeared to turn on different statutory language). In others, such as the ‘digital taxi’ theory, the issue may well be regarded as still highly controversial here.

Anyway, a number of Canadian experts have published  a book looking at the ramifications of these wide ranging decisions.

In an interesting experiment, you can buy it in the traditional way through the publisher or you may also download an ebook version for free. For more details, see the 1709 blog post.

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Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2012 – exposure draft

Leave a Comment / Patents, Trade / / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IP Australia has released for public comment an exposure draft of the proposed Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2012. The Bill has 2 purposes:

  1. to amend the Patents Act 1990 in light of the DOHA Declaration / TRIPS Protocol; and
  2. to confer original jurisdiction in matters arising under the Plant Breeder’s Rights Act 1994 on the Federal Magistrates Court in addition to the Federal Court’s existing jurisdiction.

DOHA Declaration[1] / TRIPS Protocol

Article 31 (scroll down) of the TRIPS Agreement permits members of the WTO to permit the use of patented inventions without the permission of the rightholder in the circumstances set out in the article.

The HIV/Aids crisis in Africa revealed a problem in this regime in that a number of countries which needed to rely on these provisions did not have the infrastructure, or were otherwise unable effectively, to take advantage of this regime. The basic idea underlying, first, the DOHA Declaration and, then, the TRIPS Protocol is to enable such countries to take advantage of the facilities and expertise in other countries by having the relevant drug made under compulsory licence in the foreign country.

So far, only Canada has notified the WTO pursuant to the DOHA Declaration that it has granted a compulsory licence to Apotex to export TriAvir[2] to Rwanda.[3]

Following on from consultations begun in 2010, the Government announced its intention to amend the Patents Act to implement the DOHA regime in March last year. The object of the proposed amendments is to introduce a regime for the grant of compulsory licences of pharmaceutical products on public health grounds for export to least-developed or developing countries (to be defined in the Bill as “eligible importing countries”).
As the TRIPS Protocol is not yet in force,[4] schedule 1 of the Bill is intended to implement the interim regime adopted under the DOHA Declaration. When the TRIPS Protocol does come into force, the regime in schedule 1 will be superseded by the regime to be enacted by schedule 2 of the Bill.

In either case, the regime will be separate from, and independent of, the existing compulsory licensing regime relating to domestic non-use which is currently the subject of a reference to the Productivity Commission.

As with the existing “non-use” regime, any compulsory licences would be granted only on application to the Federal Court, and not the Commissioner of Patents. If the patents in question are innovation patents, it would be necessary to apply for certification (where that has not occurred already).

Federal Magistrates Court

The extension of jurisdiction over PBR matters to the Federal Magistrates Court, which “is designed to deal with less complex matters more quickly and informally than the Federal Court”, follows several years experience with copyright matters and the extension of jurisdiction over patent, trade mark and registered design matters enacted by the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act 2012, which comes into effect on 15 April 2013.

Onus in trade mark oppositions

I wonder why the bill doesn’t fix up the onus for oppositions to the registration of trade marks to the “balance of probabilities” standard in line with the amendments – see Part 2 – that will apply in patent oppositions from 1 April 2013?

Submissions should be made by 1 October 2012.

Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2012 – exposure draft

Exposure draft Explanatory Memorandum

IP Australia’s Home Page for the exposure draft process.

  1. This is not strictly accurate terminology: I am using it as shorthand to refer to the WTO Council decision in December 2003 on paragraph 6 of the DOHA Declaration made in 2001. The WTO’s overview page is here.  ?
  2. A fixed-dose combination product of Zidovudine, Lamivudine and Nevirapine, according to Rwanda’s notification: see View Notifications.  ?
  3. The compulsory licence was issued by the Commissioner of Patents on 19 September 2007 for a period of 2 years: click on View notifications.  ?
  4. Australia has already accepted the TRIPS Protocol, but it does not come into force until two thirds of WTO’s 155 members accept it. If one counts the EU as “one” member – not sure on the politics of this as there are currently 27 members of the EU, as at May this year 44 members had accepted the TRIPS Protocol.  ?

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How much to pay for a music download?

Leave a Comment / Copyright / / / , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that no royalty is payable for downloads (should that be “streaming”?) of those 30 second previews of music. Apparently, it falls with the fair dealing provisions for “research”. The “1709” blog has the story.

Meanwhile, last year, the Australian Copyright Tribunal accepted that music download services such as iTunes, Bigpond Music, Sony and Universal should pay composers a royalty of:

  • the higher of 9% of retail price or 9 cents per track, for music downloads; and
  • the higher of 8% of retail price or 8 cents per track,

for single track downloads. There is a sliding scale for the track rates where an album, rather than a single track, is downloaded.

As the price on iTunes is typically $1.69 per “song”, I guess the % rate will usually apply for single track downloads.

(This is just what the composers get paid for the transmission and reproduction on the ‘buyer’s’ computer; not what the record companies or performers (will) get.

The composers’ collecting societies, APRA and AMCOS, had started out trying to get 12% but, in the end, the monopolies and the monopsonistic buyer(s) wound up reaching agreement. Even the ACCC, after some twisting and turning seems to have gone along with the deal, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the Copyright Act specifically gives the Copyright Tribunal power to fix these rates.

By way of comparison, the Copyright Tribunal reported that the corresponding rates were:

• United Kingdom – 8%.
• Canada – 11%.
• United States – 9.1 cents.
The rate in the United States is a fixed monetary rate. The vast majority of single track downloads in the United States at present are supplied at a price of 99 cents per download. Thus the monetary rate is equivalent to 9.1% of the sale price.

Australasian Performing Right Association Limited and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society Limited [2009] ACopyT 2

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