WIPO creates a free online resource to access data on patents, copyright, trademarks and other aspects of IP from around the globe.

CNA releases 2009-2010 FOI Audit. Federal government not doing well. Exceptional Valedictory address.

If a picture’s worth a thousand words ( — who coined that, anyway? perhaps one Fred R. Barnard, who, I hope, with a name like that learned to draw — ), a well designed logo is worth millions. Words and money.

Seems paradoxical, perhaps, that an image so lean, so simple should be that powerful. In part the power that these commercial glyphs have comes from the fact that they’re repeated endlessly, presumably because of some marketing equation that runs “cognition = recognition = approval = purchase”. But ubiquity is only a part of it: there’s the small matter . . . [more]

This will certainly be the first time that I will speak in public in my pyjamas. I’m participating in a conference this weekend hosted by the World Institute for Research and Publication (WIRP) where I’m presenting a couple papers.

It’s not that all my suits are at the dry cleaner, but because the conference is being hosted online. The first time this was done was apparently by CONVIBRA in Brazil. Since 2004, WIRP has been hosting conferences on Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Business Administration, Education, and Law, primarily using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP).

This year they’re trying something different, with . . . [more]

In a recent conversation over outsourcing at a conference, I was struck by the importance of governance to the ultimate success of an outsourcing. The individual I was speaking with (let’s call them the ‘customer’ for purposes of this article) described their situation as one in which their enterprise was late in the term of a BPO outsourcing involving the transfer of a certain business function to a service provider. As they drew nearer the end of the term and began to consider a renewal, this customer undertook a more detailed analysis of the health of the transaction with its . . . [more]

Online Dispute Resolution is being adopted world-wide but particularly in the developing world. This post looks at the most recent developments from the ODR Conference held in June in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

That Google. They have a lot of stuff, including some US Patent and Trademark office material.

The following USPTO patent products are available for free download.

Grant images
Grant full text
Grant bibliographic data
Published applications
Assignments
Maintenance fee events
USPTO Red Book
Classification information

Google must have been delivering patents for some time through its Patents beta site since their database contains “over 7 million patents”. I don’t recall hearing about this and would have remained ignorant but for Alex Horns post about the bulk data news from Tech Daily Dose.

As the Google folks say about . . . [more]

As you know, the federal government last week introduced Bill C-29 to amend the privacy provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). In this note I want to mention the breach notification rules. Essentially, a person with control of personal information will have to report to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada any ‘material breach’ of confidentiality, and notify affected individuals if ‘it is reasonable to conclude’ that the breach creates ‘a real risk of significant harm’.

The Commissioner is given no express power to order a data holder to notify if the data holder has chosen . . . [more]

It was recently reported that Passport Canada has issued 25,000 biometric passports, and plans to issue them to all Canadians by 2011. The government is introducing e-passports to enhance security, fight fraud, reduce identity theft and meet international counter-terrorism measures already in use in travel documents in over 60 countries, including the United States, the European Union, Australia and Israel. The e-passport will now be valid for a period of 10 years (thank you!—that’s an improvement at least).

A biometric passport has a data chip inside it that can be read electronically. The chip contains information about the holder’s face—such . . . [more]

This article is about batteries that you can use to provide backup power for your laptop. The emphasis is on the two external batteries that I haved actually used: the Tekkeon myPower ALL MP 3450 and the Duracell/Xantrex XPower Powersource Mobile 100.

The bottom line? I bought one of each. The Tekkeon was better designed for the specific purpose of use with a laptop, as I’ll explain below. The Xantrex, however, was a battery that could more conveniently be used as a power supply for a variety of devices.

In the Fall of 2009, I bought a Dell Mini . . . [more]

We are all undergoing training at my place of work on the newest versions of word processing and e-mail programs. At a session today, talk got around to the the need to be careful about the “metadata” that is created whenever we create and change a document.

It so happens that the American Bar Association website has recently updated its list of professional ethics opinions from around the United States concerning the handling of metadata:

(…) the term refers to the embedded stratum of data in electronics file that may include such information as who authored a document, when

. . . [more]

I recently pointed to an Ontario study showing that up to a third of residents face legal problems, and the majority of those problems are in family law. The study also looked to Internet resources as part of the solution for self-represented litigants who cannot afford counsel.

There’s a new show being launched featuring a sitting Ontario Family Court judge called Family Matters with Harvey Brownstone. Justice Brownstone is well known in Canada for his public speaking, which includes almost every law school in the country, and his book on family law, Tug-of-War.

With the new show he’s . . . [more]