Law Firm: Borden Ladner Gervais
CIRA panel orders transfer based on expanded bad-faith factors
In <i>Glen Raven Inc v Kotarac</i>, a CIRA panel has ordered the transfer of the domain name 'sunbrella.ca' to Glen Raven Inc, the owner of the SUNBRELLA mark. The complaint was decided based on the new version of the CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (version 1.3) that made it more consistent with the UDRP, notably expanding the bad-faith criteria factors.
27 January 2012
Professional designations cannot be registered as certification marks
In <i>Canadian Dental Assn v Ontario Dental Assistants Assn</i>, the Trademarks Opposition Board has followed a 1988 Federal Court decision holding that professional designations cannot be registered as certification marks. Among other things, the board found that the term 'CDA' served “only to distinguish the individuals using the mark as being certified dental assistants, rather than functioning to distinguish the services offered by these individuals”.
06 December 2011
Ontario Court of Appeal recognises domain names as personal property
In <i>Tucows.Com Co v Lojas Renner SA</i>, the Ontario Court of Appeal has followed the international trend of defining domain names as personal property. The implications of this new definition may provide a procedural advantage to Ontario holders of disputed domain names; however, the location of the domain name registrar, servers and end users may diminish this advantage.
06 September 2011
Trademark registration for purple inhaler revoked
In <i>Apotex Inc v Registrar of Trademarks</i>, the Federal Court has found that a Canadian trademark registration owned by Glaxo Group Limited, which consisted of dark and light purple colours applied to portions of the visual surface of an inhaler, was invalid as lacking distinctiveness.
19 April 2010