Atlanteknology - Technology News for Atlantic Canada

Legal mumbo jumbo you say?

Have you ever wondered why lawyers insist that even the most basic agreements contain what appear to be pages and pages of ridiculous and trivial provisions? I am sure you have.

Well, as I have said before, the clauses you glance at (assuming you even look) are relevant and are important. You may recall a recent post about the value of a comma in an agreement. Ask Aliant how much it was worth. A reader of my blog referred me to an old English case where some poor sod was hanged over the interpretation of a comma in some statute or another. Ouch!

Well, one of the clauses you may see from time to time is a clause relating to the resolution of disputes. These often say (when they are included) something to the effect that if the parties to the agreement get into a fight they will settle it out of court, often by using one or a panel of arbitrators.

Now, sometimes people do not like the clauses because they may wish to utilise remedies not easily available if you arbitrate.

In a recent case out of Ontario (the name is not all that relevant except perhaps to lawyers) a party argued that the arbitration clause in their license agreement was an inappropriate mechanism for adjudicating a dispute because the subject matter of the dispute centred around a patent. Patent law is governed by the federal Patent Act and one party argued that an arbitration panel does not have jurisdiction to hear a dispute when the subject matter involved a patent.

The court disagreed, stating that the arbitration panel could adjudicate the matter. This is a clear victory for parties which want to include arbitration clauses in their agreements. Having been involved in a few large arbitrations, I am not sure they take less time or cost less money - but they certainly do have the ability to allow the parties to limit the extent to which the public may be exposed to what is often sensitive business information.

IP in the Middle East

Where some of you may ask? It is true. In fact, if you take a look at what is happening in Dubai for example, you will see that there are some exciting things happening in the region from a technology standpoint.

I read an article in Gulfnews.com the other day indicating that the Gulf Cooperation Council has been contemplating opening a unified regional office for the registration of trade-marks from member countries. For those of you who pay attention, Dubai has been building some interesting infrastructure (Internet City, Media City for example) in order to attract technology based businesses. Too early to tell whether it will lead to any sort of designation as "The Silicon Valley of the Middle East" or something along that line, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on things.

It is not just us.....

I have blogged several times about the lack of awareness by business owners about their intellectual property assets. Well, it is not just here (NS, Canada, whatever) that this is an issue.

Here is a quote from an article I read yesterday from a Singapore based website:

"Surprisingly some industries will say 'I don't have any IP because I do manufacturing or I take orders from others'. But they could IP in the way they actually have innovated the process. They could have trade secrets that they may want to keep confidentials. So what we do is help them actually go through the IP portal and help them decide and identify what is IP and how to go about protecting the IP itself," said Liew Woon Yin, Director-General, Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.

Cold comfort really, but somehow it still makes me feel better to know that other parts of the world have the same issues.

It is a good idea to protect your ideas

There are several themes which I repeatedly write about. One of them is the importance of protecting your assets, and in particular, your intellectual property (patents, trade-marks,copyright, trade secrets, etc.) assets.

Here is another great article on the topic. I am not the only one who preaches about it. I like this quote:

"Without the patents, we'd be looking behind our shoulder more often, worried about competitors," [the CEO of Goliath Solutions] said.

Here is another one:

Howard [a business owner] has taken pains to keep the recipe and process instructions a secret. Only three other people know how Temptation is made, he said, "and we have a blood pact" not to divulge the secrets to anyone.

Take the time to learn about your assets - ALL of them. A good start is the website for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. It you do not have the time or the energy to do that, hire someone who can advise you. If it is me, great - if not, there are others out there.

Software IS Profitable

In the September/October issue of Backbone magazine there is an article which discusses a recent survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The survey reveals that 65 percent of software companies were profitable in 2005.

The figure for 2003 was 33 percent and was 56 percent in 2004. A nice three year trend which speaks well for the software industry in Canada. Hopefully it is a indicator that software companies are becoming more structured and more competitive. It bodes well for the future.

The article also notes that the survey has revealed that 70 percent of CEO's working for emerging market companies are slightly positive or positive about the growth in Canadian software IT spending.

Bon chance to all in the industry!

Website Accessibility?

Can you read this?

For some, the answer is no. How is that relevant to websites owners?

In a recent decision, reported here, a judge in San Francisco, USA ruled that a lawsuit filed by the National Federation for the Blind in the USA can proceed against Target, a retailer.

The Federation for the Blind had claimed that the website was inaccessible to blind persons, in violation of laws in both the State of California and federally for all of the USA.

Target had claimed that the lawsuit should be thrown out because the website was not a physical public place and, therefore, not subject to the laws.

The court denied Target's request and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. However, it also denied the Federation's request for an injunction requiring Target to make the site accessible to the blind while the lawsuit is in process.

I am not sure whether the case will be copied here in Canada but it is certainly something which you should consider if you have a business which has a presence in the USA and a website which is accessible to a large number of people from the USA.