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Full-Text Articles in Law
Technologies Of Servitude Understanding Firmware Tpms As Interests In Personal Property, Anthony D. Rosborough
Technologies Of Servitude Understanding Firmware Tpms As Interests In Personal Property, Anthony D. Rosborough
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
Widespread computerization and embedded system design has facilitated the pervasive and latent implementation of technological protection measures (‘‘TPMs”) to restrict device firmware access. Often referred to as ‘‘digital locks,” these restrictions impose a whole host of limitations on how owners use and manage the increasing number of products and devices in which they are incorporated. In many cases, TPM restrictions can prevent activities with social, environmental, and economical benefits, including repair, repurposing, and interoperability. In response, governments around the world are now revisiting and scrutinizing their TPM anti-circumvention laws within copyright and competition policy. Beyond these perspectives, this article looks …
Bio-Cultural Knowledge And The Challenges Of Intellectual Property Rights Regimes For African Development, Ikechi Mgbeoji
Bio-Cultural Knowledge And The Challenges Of Intellectual Property Rights Regimes For African Development, Ikechi Mgbeoji
Dalhousie Law Journal
African states have, since the colonial encounter, been part of the international regimes on intellectual property rights. Formal accession to various treaties and conventions on intellectual property rights instruments should not be mistaken for actual internalization of the policies, structures and norms required for reaping the promised benefits of participation in such regimes. There is ample evidence showing that most African states do not have the requisite structures for fruitful engagement with international intellectual property rights regimes. Until this anomaly is rectified, African states' engagement with international intellectual property regimes will remain structurally flawed and inimical to the human development …
The Canadian Public Domain: What, Where, And To What End?, Carys J. Craig
The Canadian Public Domain: What, Where, And To What End?, Carys J. Craig
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
In this article, I explore the important body of scholarship that has emerged over this time on the substance, nature, and role of the public domain. I offer some concrete definitions of the public domain in the copyright context, identify some ongoing sources of debate in the literature, and highlight some particularly significant voices in public domain discourse. In doing so, my aim is twofold: first, I mean to present a fairly comprehensive, but concise, review of this academic movement that has been directed towards substantiating and politicizing the concept of the public domain; and second, I hope to re-situate …
Regime Tension In The Intellectual Property Rights Arena: Farmers' Rights And Post-Trips Counter Regime Trends, Chidi Oguamanam
Regime Tension In The Intellectual Property Rights Arena: Farmers' Rights And Post-Trips Counter Regime Trends, Chidi Oguamanam
Dalhousie Law Journal
Recognizing the transitions that have occurred in the global intellectual property arena since the TRIPS Agreement, this article identifies and examines key sites of the counter regime trends in intellectual property rights with a focus on farmers' rights. It invokes farmers' rights to highlight the conceptual and juridicalhurdles facing the new issue-linkages that propel attempts to redress the shortcomings of the TRIPS' trade-centred approach to intellectual property. The author argues that the existingjuridical framework for farmers 'rights,especiallyunder the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), although inchoate, is stymied and not competent to realize the expectations …
Beyond Patents: The Cultural Life Of Native Healing And The Limitations Of The Patent System As A Protective Mechanism For Indigenous Knowledge On The Medicinal Uses Of Plants, Ikechi Mgbeoji
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
The question that this paper seeks to tackle is whether in the contest of allegations of biopiracy and in the search for effective mechanisms for the protection of indigenous knowledge of the medicinal uses of plants possessed by traditional healers of southern Nigeria, there is any role for the patent regime. Given the popularity of alternative forms of health care, this question is of importance in contemporary discourse.
L'Affaire Huntsman C. Soderbergh Ou Le Droit D'Expurger Les Films, René Pépin
L'Affaire Huntsman C. Soderbergh Ou Le Droit D'Expurger Les Films, René Pépin
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
Deux éléments nous motivent. D’abord, comme on le devine, la technologie évolue à un rythme rapide en ce domaine. On n’en est plus au temps où les films étaient produits unique- ment sur une véritable pellicule de plastique qu’un censeur pouvait insérer dans une machine qui lui permettait littéralement de couper des parties indésirables et de recoller les embouts. L’informatique a envahi ce domaine. Il y a maintenant des logiciels sophistiqués qui agissent comme interface entre un disque DVD et l’écran, permettant au consommateur de choisir lui-même les séquences qui seront enlevées dans un film. On comprend que ceci pose …
Genetic Use Restriction (Or Terminator) Technologies (Gurts) In Agricultural Biotechnology: The Limits Of Technological Alternatives To Intellectual Property, Chidi Oguamanam
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
This article examines the adequacy of terminator technology as a potential substitute for traditional intellectual property. It acknowledges that the technology provides a stronger protection and reward mechanism than that offered by the traditional intellectual property rights regime. However, terminator technology or any other technology for that matter, is outside the pantheon of intellectual property regimes. Fundamentally, terminator is a technological answer to the quest by private sector interests to improve appropriability of returns on investments in agrobiotech. It potentially represents a panacea to the long standing industry struggle over the profitability of private research in agrobiotech and the need …
Nickled And Dimed: The Dispute Over Intellectual Property Rights In The Bluenose Ii, Teresa Scassa
Nickled And Dimed: The Dispute Over Intellectual Property Rights In The Bluenose Ii, Teresa Scassa
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Bluenose Schooner forms part of the folk history of Nova Scotia, and is a Canadian icon. Popular assumptions that Its name and image formed part of the public domain were put to the test in 2003 when the Bluenose II Preservation Trust Society brought suit against a Halifax business for Infringement of its official marks, trademarks and copyrights relating to the ship and its name. The litigation garnered local and national media attention, and the provincial government soon became involved in the dispute In this article, the author provides some background to the dispute before moving on to consider …
A Chose By Any Other Name: Domain Names As A Security Interest, Andrew B. Cochran
A Chose By Any Other Name: Domain Names As A Security Interest, Andrew B. Cochran
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
There has been increasing study of the issues involved in using intellectual property as a security interest, but little corresponding consideration of domain names. The ascendancy in value of domain names to modern business increases their usefulness as a security interest to lenders and borrowers alike. Their use in this respect appears not to be weighed down by two of the most difficult issues facing intellectual property, namely conflicting jurisdiction between federal statutory interests and provincial property interests, together with establishing more readily acceptable methods of valuation. However, there is ambiguity about the actual form of ownership interest involved with …
Open Source, Open Arms: An Open-Ended Question, Alana Maurushat
Open Source, Open Arms: An Open-Ended Question, Alana Maurushat
Canadian Journal of Law and Technology
This paper is structured to address several aspects and challenges to the open source movement. Beginning with an outline of the historical and cultural components of the open source movement, the paper will move on to explore the economic and philosophical underpinnings of intellectual property. It will be demonstrated that open source finds itself uniquely situated within these theories and doctrines. The questions that open source poses for intellectual property will then be examined. My arguments will stem from the general premise that open source is threatened by three mechanisms: the uncertainty of the validity of open source licenses, potentially …
Need Intellectual Property Be Everywhere? Against Ubiquity And Uniformity, David Vaver
Need Intellectual Property Be Everywhere? Against Ubiquity And Uniformity, David Vaver
Dalhousie Law Journal
Intellectual property is more prevalent in every corner of our working and leisure lives. International pressure, through both bilateral treaties and multilateral treaties is causing intellectual property law to standardize at high levels throughout the world. Legal standardization may be beneficial in general but is not so for intellectual property in either the developed or the developing world. The law in developed countries is currently incoherent and itself requires major reconsideration. The imposition of such a defective law on the developing world is helpful to neither side. The paper argues that current intensification and harmonization trends are therefore undesirable, and …