That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

A few weeks ago when the postal strike was looming I wondered if a strike might be a tipping point that leads to even less mail being sent.

A Globe and Mail article says that has indeed been the case. The article says, for example, that 350,000 ING Direct customers have switched online in the past 2 weeks. The impact of that?

“Canada Post will lose at least $2,352,000 a year in revenue from ING Direct on stamps alone, assuming the company sends each of those 350,000 people one letter a month at the commercial price of $0.56 a stamp.”

The longer term question is how much this will continue to accelerate the migration to online bill presentment now that the mail has started flowing again.

This is more evidence that affordable access to the internet is becoming more important and necessary for Canadian consumers and business. It’s no wonder that internet access is being considered a human right.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

The Supreme Court of Canada recently released its decision in the case of Masterpiece v Alvida which clarified some trade-mark issues, particularly on the issue of confusion.

Here are some notes from an IT-Can roundtable conference call from today that discussed the case. Presenters were Kelly Gill of Gowling, Lafleur Henderson LLP, Clarke Hunter of Macleod Dixon LLP and Brandon Potter of Macleod Dixon LLP.

The issue in the case essentially related to the use by different parties of “Masterpiece Living” vs “Masterpiece the Art of Living”, and whether they are confusing.

The main issues:

Is it relevant that the companies are in different provinces?

Is the “get up” or appearance of a word mark relevant?

Is it relevant that the wares are costly?

The case reinforced some existing trade-mark understanding – but also clarified some things.

A registration gives national rights – and you must assume for the confusion analysis that they are used in the same place. The fact that they are actually provided in different provinces is irrelevant.

When dealing with a registered mark – one doesn’t look at how the mark is actually used – one looks at the actual registration. So if one has registered a word-mark – the fact that the word-mark is used in practice in a certain font or design is irrelevant.

These marks were for retirement homes, which is an expensive and not a quick decision. The court said that it is a first impression test, not after research. The price of the goods is a factor, but not as definitive as some had thought.

The court cast some doubt on whether expert or survey evidence was necessary, and encouraged litigants to rely on judge’s decisions without them.

From the perspective of the trade-mark registration process, the case reinforces some things:

It’s a good idea to search across Canada – preferably using a dedicated trade-mark clearance service that looks at common law uses across Canada.

It’s best to register sooner rather than later, as once filed it acts as a barrier to future applicants of confusing marks. (Rights always go to first use – but first application gives a procedural and cost advantage.)

Consider a trade-mark watch service that monitors the trade-marks journal for similar applications, so it can be opposed then, rather than finding out later and having to litigate it. It is simpler and cheaper.

If dealing with expensive wares and services – it does suggest one gets broader protection. This balances off against the former notion that the time to research after seeing a mark and acting on a purchase is relevant.

For the London Free Press – June 20, 2011 – Read this on Canoe

The Ontario Privacy Commissioner’s recently released annual report talks about protecting personal information on mobile devices and the privacy by design concept for the creation of new technology.

An enormous amount of private information is processed, transferred and stored via handheld devices and portable media. Personal cellphones, PDAs, iPads, USB thumb-drives, MP3 players and laptop computers each have the potential to make personal and work-related tasks more efficient and convenient.

A USB flash drive or laptop allows the busy person to work from home. Instead of lugging around boxes of paper, portable media allows the busy person to transport and access the information on the go. Instead of trying to remember intricate details about events or appointments, hand-held devices create a virtual memory warehouse that can be accessed with the flick of a finger.

Despite the benefits of hand-held devices, they have the potential to create immense difficulties when they are misplaced, stolen or sold in a used condition. The transfer of a hand-held device from one person to another, by whatever method, includes the transfer of information unless the information is deleted beforehand. Serious problems and legal liabilities occur when unsecured private or confidential information can be accessed by outsiders. There have been many instances where hard drives and USB sticks containing personal information have gone missing.

Commissioner Ann Cavoukian states, “personal health information must never be stored on mobile devices such as laptops, PDAs and USB keys, unless it is absolutely necessary. And when it is, the data must be encrypted — Full Stop.”

The commissioner provided an update on her “privacy by design” initiative. The privacy by design initiative is focused on embedding privacy safeguards into new technologies at the earliest stages of development. The idea is it is far easier and more effective to design devices, software and services with privacy in mind from the ground up, than to add it on later.

For example, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission recently adopted the privacy by design initiative in facial recognition technology that identifies problem gamblers at various gaming sites. The facial recognition software was embedded with privacy safeguards so that data about non-problem gamblers will never be permanently stored. And data about problem gamblers cannot be accessed unless the problem gambler appears and is visually identified in person at a gambling site.

Another example where the concept was used was Ontario’s smart grid that has the potential to erode privacy from the collection of detailed household electricity consumption information.

The privacy by design philosophy is a laudable one, and ought to result in more privacy-friendly products. But that does not detract from the responsibility we have to ensure that we understand and exercise our own privacy options. Nor does it detract from the obligations of those in possession of our personal information to take adequate steps to protect it.

The Commissioner’s report is available at www.ipc.on.ca.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

I’ve had an iPad for about a month now. I remain convinced that the tablet format is a game changer. There are pros and cons and fans and detractors for various devices. In the long run it will be interesting to see how the market shakes out. There is of course the iPad, various Android devices (the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 just coming out now is highly anticipated), and the Blackberry Playbook. And don’t count out Microsoft. They will be late to the game, but their Windows 8 concept may gain some traction.

I’ll give some examples of how I have found it useful for work. Most of these things could be accomplished on a laptop – but a tablet wins out on portability, ease of use, and startup speed. One aspect that wins big time over a laptop is its unobtrusiveness. Using it when other people are around, such as in a meeting, or when giving a presentation, removes the barrier of the screen.

I recently gave a presentation on social media and the law to a client group. I have given that presentation before, and put it on the iPad to review it ahead of time and update my speaking notes. That was done at night and over a weekend. I then used it during the presentation to keep on track. The powerpoint was on a computer that was already being used for the meeting, but it is possible to connect the iPad to a projector to run a powerpoint.

Yesterday I was on a panel at a Chamber of Commerce presentation on social media. To collect my thoughts for that, I used the iPad to cut and paste and edit from the larger presentation. Then used it during the presentation for speaking notes, and to jot down some references from the other speakers.

It is starting to become a tool in my quest for a paperless office. It is very easy to use to review and mark-up documents, which can be then either emailed to myself or sent via dropbox to deal with in our document management system. I have been marking up documents for some time on my PC using a Wacom tablet. Using the tablet is just as easy, if not easier.

I have also started to use it to take handwritten notes when talking to clients. Old habits die hard, though, and I am not yet to the place where I automatically grab it instead of a pad of paper. Perhaps I need to keep it front and centre on my desk and put the pad of paper behind me.

To mark up documents and take handwriten notes (I’m a lousy typist – the on screen keyboard is actually quite easy to use) I bought a capacitive pen. You can use your finger, but I found that it is easier to use the pen.

For those wanting to know more about specific apps, here’s an article from law.com entitiled How the iPad Can Increase Lawyers’ Productivity.

In what strikes me as a bizarre ruling, the body that regulates radio and television in France has ruled that presenters must say “follow us on social media”, rather than “follow us on Twitter”, or “follow us on Facebook”. 

The reason?  It violates France’s ban on secret advertising.  The regulator’s statement says ”.. the reference to these pages by naming the relevant social networks is an advertising character who contravenes the provisions of Article 9 of Decree of 27 March 1992 prohibiting surreptitious advertising”.

For more detail, see this Out-Law.com article, and this BBC report.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows:

This is World IPv6 day – a day that Wired calls the Nerdiest Holiday ever.

Many organizations – including Google and Facebook – are trying out the new IPv6 protocol today. The current addressing scheme for the internet uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). But we are running out of addresses. An IP address is the numerical address for devices on the internet (such as computers or smartphones) that allow them to communicate. The concept is similar to the telephone number for your landline phone using POTS (plain old telephone service). IPv4 uses a 32 bit address, which allows 2 to the 32 , or about 4.2 billion addresses. IPv6 uses a 128 bit address, which allows 2 to the 128, or about 340 undecillion addresses. That’s 3 followed by 38 zeros. It also has other features not contained in IPv4.

An IPv4 address looks like this: 192.168.0.1 . An IPv6 address looks like this: 2607:F798:0010:0114:0000:0672:3121:0171 .

In addition to getting over an address shortage for conventional use, it provides enough addresses for the internet of things, where, for example, your house and everything in it (appliances, furnace, lights, …) can each have its own unique address.

One of the challenges is that IPv4 and IPv6 are not interoperable, thus requiring dual protocol techniques to be used so long as IPv4 addresses continue to be used.

For more information on IPv6, see this Wikipedia article, this Rogers article entitled World IPv6 Day: how will it impact you? , or the worldipv6day.org site.

Last April the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned an Alberta Privacy Commissioner ruling and decided that Leons furniture store was justified in collecting driver’s license and license plate information from customers picking up furniture.  The decision and some of its reasoning was counter to the that typically espoused by various privacy commissioners.

The Alberta Privacy Commissioner has asked for leave to appeal the descision to the Supreme Court of Canada.   Having the SCC weigh in here might lead to some clarity on this issue. 

More detail and links to background material is in this post by David Fraser.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows:

News reports say that there may be a postal strike in Canada later this week. If it goes ahead, I’m wondering if it might be a tipping point that leads to even less mail being sent.

If we look at the mail we receive at home (after we recycle the junk mail), much of it is bills to pay. The major utilities and credit card companies have online bill presentment options that they encourage us to use. I suspect there are a lot of people who have not made the switch to receiving their bills online simply because they are creatures of habit, and don’t bother to take the time to make the change or learn how to do it.

Will a strike be the event that changes that and results in a significant uptake in online bill presentment?