Region: North America

In <i>LifeGear Inc v Urus Industrial Corporation</i>, the Federal Court of Canada has held the defendant in contempt of court for continuing to offer for sale counterfeit products over the Internet following an earlier court order prohibiting such sale. The court came to this conclusion, in spite of the fact that the website appeared to be operated outside of Canada by a third party.

13 February 2004

In <i>Molson Canada v Anheuser-Busch Inc</i>, the Federal Court of Canada has dismissed the plaintiff's opposition to the registration of MICHELOB GOLDEN DRAFT. It held that although the plaintiff's series of marks featuring the word 'golden' are strong and well known in Canada, when analyzed as a whole, the two parties' marks were not of similar appearance.

15 January 2004

In <i>Agropur Coopérative v Saputo Inc</i>, the Quebec Superior Court has granted a motion for an interim injunction ordering the defendant to stop marketing, selling and distributing milk products using a packaging similar to the registered get-up for Agropur's ULTRALAIT products.

12 January 2004

In <i>ITV Technologies Inc v WIC Television Ltd</i>, the Federal Court of Canada has applied conventional trademark principles to dismiss a claim that a domain name infringed a registered trademark. During the trial the court allowed the use of the Internet to provide evidence that otherwise would not have been presented.

10 December 2003

In <i>Tommy Hilfiger Licensing Inc v International Clothiers Inc</i>, the Federal Court has ruled that the defendant's use of a trademarked design that was confusingly similar to that of the plaintiff amounted to passing off, even though it was not used as a trademark.

03 December 2003

The Federal Court has dismissed the plaintiff university's action for summary judgment in relation to its claim that the defendant, a government agency, had infringed its official mark in contravention of Section 9 of the Canadian Trademarks Act. The court held that the defendant began using the mark before the notice of the plaintiff's adoption of its official mark had been issued.

13 November 2003

In <i>Lego Canada Inc v Ritvik Holdings Inc</i>, the Federal Court of Appeal has followed the lead of courts in other jurisdictions, finding that Lego has no valid trademark in the look of its toy blocks because the look is a primarily functional feature of the toy.

06 October 2003

Following a quarterly review, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority - the organization in charge of the management of the '.ca' country-code top-level domain - has introduced some operational improvements to its rules and policies. These include amendments to the Registrant Agreement and clarification of the Fees Policy and Rules.

03 October 2003

The Federal Court of Canada has upheld the trademark registrar's decision to dismiss Bacardi's opposition to the registration of 'Havana Club' as a word mark and design. It found that as the applicant is also the owner - albeit disputedly - of the prior registered mark HAVANA CLUB, the claim of confusing similarity that was the basis of the opposition could not prevail.

22 September 2003

In <i>Acrobat Construction/Enterprise Management Inc v 1550507 Ontario Inc</i>, a CIRA panel has refused to order the transfer of 'acrobat.ca' to the complainant. The panel held that the respondent (i) has a legitimate right to use the domain name to host a search engine providing results for a search of the word 'acrobat', and (ii) had not registered or used it in bad faith.

19 September 2003