Canadian Intellectual Property Law and Strategy: Trademarks, Copyright, and Industrial Designs

Canadian Intellectual Property Law and Strategy provides a comprehensive overview of the Canadian law relating to trademarks, copyright and industrial designs, along with strategic, practice-oriented commentary regarding how such laws can best be used for business advantage.
The first part of the book is devoted to trademarks. The material in this section, in addition to providing an overview of Canadian trademark law, will deal with how a foreign trademark owner can use the system most advantageously. The initial focus will be on acquisition of rights-for example, an application can be filed in Canada based on foreign registration and use and a registration can be obtained without having to show any use of the trade mark in Canada-while latter sections will emphasize the best strategies to maintain and protect trademark rights in Canada.
The second part of the book is devoted to copyright, with less emphasis on the specific industries-e.g., movie production-that typically rely on the copyright system than a broad, business-oriented treatment that reflects the potentially far-reaching impact of the law. (For example, copyright can subsist in a design trade mark if sufficiently original.) The approach will thus be of a general commercial nature, emphasizing how legislation can be used to protect rights in Canada, with specific attention paid to understanding which rights are available and the steps that should be taken to protect those rights, whether by means of the appropriate assignments and registrations, or on enforcement actions in the Canadian courts.
The third part of the book focuses on industrial designs, and will explain what needs to be done and when by manufacturers to protect their products. The emphasis will initially be on understanding the system and the potential benefits available by obtaining registrations, with the rest of the section focusing on the steps required to protect and assert those rights against infringers.

John McKeown is a partner at Cassels Brock in Toronto, where his practice focuses on the advocacy and advice concerning intellectual property and related marketing matters, including protecting trademarks, copyrights, patents, confidential information and misleading advertising and related claims under the Competition Act. He also acts for a number of U.S. law firms, helping them protect their clients' intellectual property rights in Canada. He is the author of Fox, Canadian Law of Copyright and Industrial Designs (Carswell/Thomson 4th Edition, 2003), the leading copyright textbook in Canada.