The Canadian generic pharmaceutical industry has recently been successful in invalidating several brand name drug patents on the basis of “The Promise” doctrine. Eli Lilly would like to put an end to this, using Canada’s international treaty obligations under NAFTA.

Can you see the difference?

In the mid 2000s one could start to see Canadian patent cases “turning” somewhat. Before this, the general sense was that a mere scintilla of utility was enough to obtain a patent. However, if the patentee made an explicit and unequivocal “Promise” of a certain use or result, recent cases have held the patentee to . . . [more]

As I think I’ve remarked before in this space, there are a number of things fundamental to being human that science still cannot fully explain. These “mundane marvels” interest me — I’m thinking of laughing, crying, sleeping . . . and yawning. We yawn 25,000 times in our life. Fetuses do it, apparently. We do it when we’re bored, anxious, hungry, tired.

But why?

And that’s the problem. Nobody has the answer. Or, there are too many answers. Have a look at this article, which gives you something of the essence of Wolter Seuntjens’s dissertation, a work in . . . [more]

Among the many things altered by the Internet is the sense of what it means to make things public. The world is simply a much more public place, in the sense of what is made visible and accessible, whether image or text, whether from your neighbour or an organization on the other side of the globe. For my part, I have been fascinated by and involved in what this means for the research and scholarship that universities produce. One element of this new public quality involves the publishing of data on new scale. The fifteenth-century emergence of the printing . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a release with the list of appeals that it will hear in January 2013.

For each case listed, there is a summary of the issues involved.

And if you go to the scheduled hearings page and click on the name of any of the cases, you will be able to find the factums filed by the parties. . . . [more]

The government, through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, is holding a two-month public consultation to develop updated accessibility requirements for the Building Code.

William A. Amos and Hugh S. Wilkins

The polluter pays principle requires polluters to take responsibility for remedying contamination for which they are responsible, imposing on them the direct and immediate costs of pollution.

In a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision, Newfoundland and Labrador v. AbitibiBowater Inc. 2012 SCC 67, the Court missed an excellent opportunity to affirm the application of the polluter pays principle and clarify the linkages between environmental law and insolvency law.

We were involved in the appeal as counsel for Friends of the Earth Canada, an intervener, arguing that insolvent corporations retain their . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

REVISING CANADA’S ETHICAL RULES FOR JUDGES RETURNING TO PRACTICE
S. G. A. PItel & W. Bortolin
(2011) 34 Dalhousie Law Journal 483
Excerpt: pp. 515-520

[Footnotes omitted. They are available in the full PDF version of the article, available at SSRN via the link on the title above.]

4. Prohibiting participation in the same . . . [more]

When a party to a proceeding says that they “want their day in court”, an oral hearing is usually what he or she is contemplating. Just ask Conrad Black: Conrad Black v. The Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, 2012 FC 1234. (For commentary on the other aspects of the decision, see here and here.

However, in most cases there is no automatic right to an oral hearing. Procedural fairness does not require an oral hearing in all circumstances. In Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 SCR 817, the Supreme Court stated . . . [more]

The lockout is over and the players are back at practice. Time to skate on? Yes, but I think we ought to look at the “game tape” to review the effectiveness of some of the legal wrangling that took place in Canada. After all, we’ll likely be back in the same place in 10 years. As discussed in a previous post, the NHLPA filed proceedings before the labour boards of Quebec and Alberta against the NHL, seeking to have the lockout declared illegal. What happened to those proceedings? Not much…

The interim relief sought in both cases was rejected . . . [more]

As announced moments ago, CanLII is launching a collaboration with BG Communications, a Montreal -based translation agency, in order to ensure that certain important case reports delivered in one of the official languages only are made available in the other language. As CanLII President, Colin Lachance notes:

With over 2000 new decisions posted each week, it is not possible to translate everything. . . . However, the legal community has highlighted a number of decisions that warrant wider availability in the other official language.

The press release goes on to say:

Judgments selected for translation will be identified in

. . . [more]

Sometimes as litigators we get stuck on a certain kind of advocacy, one that is born in, and charged by, conflict. A type of advocacy that burns so fast, it injures everyone in its wake. We recognize with gratitude the advocates who compellingly and compassionately tell the narratives that change our minds. We believe that they are the truly gifted advocates, for they win their opponents over rather than beat them.

The Idle No More movement has galvanized indigenous peoples across Canada to express their opposition to the federal government’s policies, practices, and intentions towards First Nations. New leaders are . . . [more]

This has been quite a rule of law year. One peak was in August 2012, when the United Nations General Assembly devoted its first-ever opening debate to the rule of law and adopted a Declaration on the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels. As Juan Botero, director of the World Justice Project poetically described it to me: “193 government leaders walked up to the podium and said rule of law is good. And that is good.”

It is. But it could have been better. In March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report called Delivering Justice . . . [more]