Archive for June, 2009
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Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Following up on one of our earlier posts, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office recently adopted a couple of revisions to its examination practices.
Since June 17, the Office has been providing six month periods to respond to Examiner objections, as opposed to the four month window previously provided. In addition, the Office is no longer issuing ‘doubtful case’ or ‘courtesy letters’ – those letters that were sent to trade-mark applicants identifying co-pending applications for allegedly confusing marks having a later entitlement date.
This latter change reinforces the importance of both having watch services in place, and regularly reviewing the Trade-marks Journal for the advertisement of marks of interest.
Posted in Legislation, Protection & Enforcement, Registration | No Comments »
Corporate Knights Jousts with Maclean’s
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Maclean’s magazine’s recent June cover story “Canada’s 50 Best Corporate Citizens” has drawn the ire of the magazine Corporate Knights. Corporate Knights claims that it has been grading corporate citizenship since 2002 and annually releases such rankings under the title ”Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada”.
As well, Corporate Knights has filed a trade-mark application for the phrase, which application remains pending. Corporate Knigths claims that Maclean’s story encroaches upon its trade-mark rights and, as such, has apparently had its lawyers send a letter to Maclean’s demanding that all copies containing the story be pulled from circulation and destroyed, that Maclean’s print a retraction and pay Corporate Knights $4 million. In response, Maclean’s has pointed out the descriptive nature of the claimed trade-mark.
To increase pressure on Maclean’s (and in all likelihood to increase its own profile) Corporate Knights is using social media to highlight its story, having created a Facebook group, and is calling for the editor of Maclean’s to debate the editor of Corporate Knights regarding corporate responsibility.
Interestingly, we note that an online story on macleans.ca refers to “The Jantzi-Maclean’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2009″.
Posted in Branding | 1 Comment »
PETA Clubs Olympics for Anti-Sealing Campaign
Friday, June 12th, 2009
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a new “spoof” website in its stated bid to convince the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) that it should help in the campaign to end the Canadian seal hunt.
It will be interesting to see what response VANOC has to this, presumably unauthorized, use of its trademarks and copyright protected images by PETA. Both the Copyright Act and the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act contain provisions permitting use of protected trademarks and works for purposes of criticism, however, in this case the criticism is of something seemingly unrelated to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The PETA spoof website has already attracted criticism from the leader of the national Inuit organization in Canada.
Posted in Famous Marks | 1 Comment »