Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Devry Smith Frank LLP v. Chopra, 2018 ONSC 1303

[30] In terms of the quality of its work, Mr. Chopra made no complaint, and there was no basis for a complaint. He was a difficult client with a difficult case, which notwithstanding the small value of the claim demanded a great deal of time, attention, and effort from DSF, from which . . . [more]

Patents granted in Canada based on patent applications filed in the last couple of decades have been given terms of exclusivity of twenty years. The twenty year term starts from the date the patent application was filed in Canada, even if it takes several years to be examined and granted by the patent office or if the underlying products take time to be approved by the regulatory agencies.

That has now changed as part of compromises made during the negotiations for CETA, the trade agreement with Europe. Amendments to the Patent Act and implementing regulations came into force in September . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on research, writing, and practice.

Practice

More Tips on Using Microsoft Word
Law Society of Saskatchewan Library

The most popular blog post on Legal Sourcery since our launch in 2014 is Cross-referencing footnotes in Word by Reché McKeague. This post has been read 11,012 times since posted on April 29, 2014. That’s an average of almost 400 times each month. Here are a few more interesting posts on Word tips and tricks from other law . . . [more]

After five years of ABS liberalization in England (and Wales), it is worth having a look at what has happened. Surprisingly and significantly, the answer is “not much”.

ABS liberalization in England

A decade ago, Legal Services Act 2007 brought about significant changes to the practice of law in England. These changes included allowing what were called alternative business structures to provide legal services where only lawyers were previously permitted to serve clients. The first alternative business structures were licensed in late 2011.

The essential idea of alternative business structures is that constraining ownership of legal practices constrains competition and . . . [more]

When the federal government proposed changes on tax policies for private corporations last summer, some lawyers expressed significant concerns.

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA), the largest legal organization in Canada, launched a campaign against these measures. In one letter, as part of a coalition for small business tax, they stated,

These are not minor amendments, but are sweeping changes that will affect all sectors of Canada’s business community and we ask that you not move forward with these proposals. Instead, the organizations listed below stand ready to meet with you and your officials to offer our support and ideas for

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Les requérants, Stefano Sollecito et Leonardo Rizzuto, sont acquittés sous les accusations d’avoir commis un acte criminel sous la direction d’une organisation criminelle ou en association avec elle et d’avoir comploté afin de commettre le trafic de cocaïne, la poursuite n’ayant aucune preuve à offrir autre que . . . [more]

On Friday, January 26, 2018, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) released a draft of their position regarding online reputation and on how Canadians can better protect their online privacy and rights.

The draft report is the result of a 2016 consultation on online reputations. Through this consultation, the OPC was soliciting input from interested stakeholders about new and innovative ways to protect reputational privacy. Reputation and Privacy is one of the OPC’s four strategic privacy priorities. A summary of the 28 submissions received is posted online on the OPC website.

Summarizing the report

The draft . . . [more]

Children’s Participation in Justice Process: Finding the Best Ways Forward was a two-day national symposium held in Calgary, Alberta on 15 and 16 September 2017 that brought together a broad, multidisciplinary spectrum of leading stakeholders to share information and dialogue about how the voices of children and youth are heard, how their interests are protected and how their evidence is received in justice processes. The symposium was preceded by a half-day conference on the fundamentals of family law in Canada on 14 September 2017, designed for mental health professionals and symposium participants who were not justice system professionals, intended to . . . [more]

Why do businessmen try to avoid litigation?

Consider the lawyerly advice that a poor settlement is better than a good lawsuit. This proverb asks one to consider the money and effort required for a trial, in addition to the risks of a trial.

Most civil legal claims are settled before trial. According to a survey by the U.S. Department of Justice, over 95 percent of civil cases (in state courts) are settled or dismissed without a trial.

Many cases are settled because trials are notoriously risky.

Some lawyers say that there are several risks. One risk is the credibility of . . . [more]

On February 28, 2018, the government of the Northwest Territories tabled Bill 6, the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Implementation Act. A complete copy of the legislation can be found here.

Under the draft legislation it is proposed that:

• The Liquor Commission will be responsible for distribution and sale of cannabis in the NTW;
• Cannabis will be sold in “cannabis stores”, which will initially be the existing liquor stores with the possibility of “cannabis-only” stores in the future;
• Mail order purchase and delivery will be available;
• Communities will be able to hold a plebiscite on whether to restrict or ban

For at least a year now, the magic word in technology circles has been “blockchain” – the accretive cryptographic system behind Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

A distributed ledger

A blockchain serves as a distributed ledger, a record of transactions or other information that is secure from alteration and that operates without any central authority. Its security derives from the digital signatures required to affect the record. It foregoes a central authority by residing simultaneously on very large numbers of computers on its network (which is what “distributed” means in this context, in contrast with “centralized”.) Each such computer contains . . . [more]