CIPPIC News

Supreme Court Rules Facebook Forum Selection Clause Unenforceable

– 2017-06-23 –

In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Douez v Facebook, Inc. 2017 SCC 33, that Facebook’s efforts in its terms of service to require Canadians to pursue grievances with Facebook in California courts instead of Canadian courts is unenforceable.

The case involved a class action against Facebook alleging violations of BC's Privacy Act. The class action could not proceed, however, as Facebook argued that its terms of service require disputes to be resolved in California courts and under California law. Historically, the Supreme Court of Canada's jurisprudence favoured enforcement of these “forum selection clauses” on the rationale that holding sophisticated commercial parties to their jurisdictional choices advances the underlying principles that private international law seeks to achieve.

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Back on the Data Trail: OPC Awards CIPPIC Grant to Study Canadian Data Broker Industry

– 2017-06-01 –

CIPPIC has been awarded a grant from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, through its Contributions Program, for a research project analyzing the activities of data brokers in Canada.

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Google Policy Fellowships at Citizen Lab and CIPPIC Announced!

– 2017-04-10 –

Today marks the launch of the 2017 Google Policy Fellowship (Canada), which will host a Google Policy Fellow at each of Canada's two leading technology research and policy centres - CIPPIC and the Citizen Lab, University of Toronto. CIPPIC's Google Policy Fellow will join our Summer Internship Program and work closely with CIPPIC staff on a range of dynamic, cutting edge law & technology issues as we seek to further our public interest mandate. This includes helping to formulate strategy, conducting research and analysis, and drafting submissions to various levels of court, political and legislative venues, and regulatory bodies. Substantively, CIPPIC advocacy covers a diverse range of digital rights/policy issues, including copyright, privacy/electronic surveillance, telecommunications regulation/net neutrality, online consumer protection, online speech, access to knowledge and more general Internet governance concerns. CIPPIC is strongly committed to a diverse environment, and in particular encourages applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who will enrich our discourse by ensuring it is the product of a diversity of perspectives.

The policy fellow will also participate in our Summer Speaker Series, which brings leading experts in Canadian law & technology fields in to discuss various pressing issues with our students in a closed environment. See past annual bulletins for a list of past speakers, as well as a description of some of our work. Applications are due Friday, April 28, 2017. The fellowship will run for 10 weeks this summer and is open to any law students or law graduate students, with specific times and dates to be coordinated with the host organization. Application details are available at: https://cippic.ca/jobs/google_policy_fellowship_canada_2017.

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Canada Wins NAFTA Arbitration on Canadian Patent Law

– 2017-03-21 –
A NAFTA Arbitration Panel has dismissed Eli Lilly's claim for compensation from the Canadian government for the invalidation of two of its patents by the Supreme Court of Canada. Lilly claimed that Canada's utility standard under patent law failed to meet its NAFTA obligations, and that the invalidation of its patents amounted to an expropriation that entitled it to a remedy under NAFTA's investor protection provisions.

Lilly's argument sought to leverage international trade investor protection provisions to shape the general contours of substantive intellectual property law. The Panel rejected that invitation, declining to challenge courts' supervisory role over patentability in the Canadian patent system, stating that "a NAFTA Chapter Eleven tribunal is not an appellate tier" and that it would be inappropriate for a NAFTA tribunal to assess judicial conduct against NAFTA obligations other than in "exceptional circumstances, in which there is clear evidence of egregious and shocking conduct."

Decision:
- Eli Lilly v Canada
Previously:
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Federal Court Finds Fair Dealing in Blacklock’s Reporter v AG Canada

– 2016-11-10 –

The Federal Court of Canada has found that obtaining, reading and distributing paywalled articles for the purposes of assessing and responding to the contents of those articles constituted fair dealing under the Copyright Act.

In a tightly drafted judgement, Justice Barnes found that the Finance Department employees exercised their fair dealing rights for research purposes in receiving a pair of articles from a Blacklock's subscriber, and reading and sharing those articles internally with other Department employees. Justice Barnes rejected Blacklock's arguments that its terms of use barred such dealing, noting that it was not Blacklock's practice to explicitly bring such terms to the attention of users, and, in any event, those terms contained an ambiguity permitting reproduction and distribution for non-commercial, personal or educational purposes.

Given the outcome of its fair dealing analysis, Justice Barnes saw no need to address the Government's claim that Blacklock's practices constituted copyright misuse, although he did note that there are "certainly some troubling aspects to Blacklock's business practices". The Court awarded costs to the Government.

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cippic RT @cippmcgill: @cippic @IP_policy @jdebeer Proper link to factum: t.co/4MIiO0wW0N
22 hours 34 min ago.
cippic RT @cippmcgill: Supreme Court promises to rule on #patent utility Friday! Our factum here: t.co/IoNVcCvbiz… with @cippic @IP_policy…
23 hours 3 min ago.
cippic RT @ianrkerr: @uocommonlaw @cippic team ROCKED IT !!!!!!!!! t.co/RrfBs3NT5o
4 days 2 hours ago.
cippic RT @TeresaScassa: Hot off the presses! @uOttawaTechLaw @geothinkca t.co/2cCr4K6Aip
4 days 2 hours ago.
cippic RT @KristenThomasen: @f_mb @cippic @SCC_eng Kudos @cippic and @pavLAWich!
4 days 3 hours ago.
cippic RT @IP_policy: Congratulations @jdebeer and @cippic on your intervention and the outcome of this case! t.co/X0UvfsoxdP
4 days 3 hours ago.
cippic RT @jdebeer: #SCC cites @cippic: commercial and consumer relationships are very different. Facebook terms unenforceable t.co/1IV76M…
4 days 3 hours ago.
cippic RT @f_mb: Big kudos to @pavLAWich @uOttawaTechLaw @uocommonlaw who is cited by @SCC_eng in Douez v. Facebook! t.co/Cbk5A8hSb0
4 days 3 hours ago.

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