W. Michael G. Osborne
Affleck Greene McMurtry LLP December 14th, 2012

Cable and satellite television companies won an important victory when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on December 13, 2012, that the CRTC has no jurisdiction to force them to pay to redistribute local television broadcasts to their audiences. This decision may herald a trend to confining subordinate bodies like the CRTC more narrowly to the areas of jurisdiction granted to them by Parliament. CRTC proposes “value for signal” regime Currently, cable and satellite TV companies (known as “broadcast distribution undertakings”, or “BDUs”) do not pay television broadcasters to distribute over-the-air television signals to local audiences. The Copyright Act expressly [...] Full article

Hollywood studios successfully enforce breach of copyright judgment against Ontario website operator

Kenneth A. Dekker
Affleck Greene McMurtry LLP April 12th, 2006

Citing the Internet's unique potential to cause harm anywhere and everywhere, Madam Justice Lax of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice enforced a New York District Court judgment earlier this month against the operators of Ontario-based websites that facilitated the illegal copying and downloading of movies. Full article

Intellectual property is not exempt from Competition Act’s reach

W. Michael G. Osborne
Affleck Greene McMurtry LLP November 1st, 2005

Eli Lilly and Co. v. Apotex Inc. On November 2 2005, the Federal Court of Appeal held that where an agreement to assign a patent increases the assignee’s market power [...] Full article