Atlanteknology - Technology News for Atlantic Canada

Welcome!

Well, at long last, and after much sweat, I have created a web log (or blog as they are more commonly known). What is the purpose of this creature you may ask? Well, I think the subtitle under the name "Atlanteknology" says it all.

People from Atlantic Canada, I have found, need more tools and information concerning matters involving the protection and exploitation of the things they invent or create but which are intangible (software, books, widgets, logos, trade-names etc.). The world is moving so rapidly in a direction whereby intellectual property and not bricks and mortar have the bulk of value for people/businesses. We in Atlantic Canada are (speaking generally) neither prepared nor informed.

Nor are we (and I speak about Canadians in this regard) overly comfortable with highlighting our successes and urging those who may not have succeeded to try again. This, in my opinion, has got to change.

In my own small way I hope to be able to provide insight, information and hopefully a bit of inspiration to my fellow citizens on a topic which I love and which I have dedicated my professional career to - intellectual property and its protection and utlization.

So....welcome. I hope you find my blog useful. As it grows and develops the blog will morph over time so I encourage you to come back often! Please comment on anything if you feel so inclined. Whether complimentary or otherwise, it does not matter to me so long as it provides value in some form.

Intranet for all schools?

An interesting article Read it here out of BBC news describes how all schools in Scotland are being linked together on a common intranet. The system will cost, according to the article, around 75 million (Cdn.). Says the Education Minister:

"Linking every school, every teacher and every pupil via a single intranet accessible from any computer means learning will no longer end at the school gate.

"Pupils will be able to do more meaningful work at home and parents will be able to take a much more active role in their children's learning."

Perhaps we'll see something like this in Nova Scotia in the near future....

US Biotech Patent Cases in Trouble

More than 100 biotech patent applications -- part of a land rush to protect bits of identifiable genetic markers -- will most likely be thrown out as inventions lacking practical use, as a result of a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The Monsanto Co. case, closely watched by the biotechnology industry, is the court's first application of the patent protection standard of "substantial and specific" utility to nucleotide sequences known as expressed sequence tags, or ESTs -- a component of DNA.

For those companies in this very particular field, it has got to be a bit of a setback. Monsanto alone had more than 650,000 ESTs identified that could have been subject to patent protection according to the article.
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Life Sciences Industry Conference

I would be remiss if I did not make mention of the annual life sciences industry conference here in Halifax, which takes places September 27-29. Find out more here. It is an exciting event which, among other things, provides educational opportunities for life sciences and biotech companies, as well as networking events. I am the Vice-President of Bionova, the organization which organizes the event (thats my disclaimer with respect to self-promotion).

Domain Name Disputes - Bad Faith

The Toro Company v. Hannon is an interesting case. Usually an owner of a trade-mark has little difficulty in getting web sites named after relatively prominent trade-marks transferred to the trade-mark owner. Not so in a case revolving around the web site "toro.ca". The sticking point was that the owner of the web site had registered it in bad faith or whether he had had a legitimate use for the name (he did - the site was a way for people with the last name "Toro" to keep in touch). Just another reason to do in-depth web based searching when selecting trade-marks, trade names, or business names. View case

File sharing programmes - the response (round XII?)

The music and movie industries have released a free programme, called Digital File Check, which uninstalls or disables file-sharing programmes on people's computers. The groups are mainly aiming the programme at parents and employers in Europe but I read another report which suggests it is being made available in North America as well. News