At recruiting! For the second year in a row, the Ultra Vires student newspaper at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law has named us the top boutique firm for recruiting.

An interesting note via IPKat: The European Patent Office and Google have signed an agreement to use Google's machine translators to translate patent documents into the many languages used in Europe.

As has been widely reported, RIM has sued KIK Messenger for patent infringement, breach of contract etc. etc. in the Federal Court. KIK Messenger's texting app went viral over the last two months; several people have pointed out that it challenges the market positioning of RIM's own BBM service. Another twist is that the founder of KIK, Ted Livingston, used to work for RIM, and the suit accuses Livingston of violating his confidentiality agreement with RIM.

A should-read if you're interested in high tech patent litigation - the Globe and Mail has an article on Ottawa's latest high-tech industry - tearing apart high tech devices looking for proof of patent or other intellectual property infringement.

The Federal Government has appealed the recent Amazon case dealing with patentable subject matter. HERE is a copy of the Notice of Appeal (from Alan Macek's ippractice.ca). Unsurprisingly, the government is appealing on a long list of grounds.

A quick... OK, long blog post on yesterday's PM(NOC) decision concerning a Janssen patent covering galantamine. Matt Dugas, who wrote this, Nathaniel Lipkus and Tim Gilbert argued the case.

From the newspaper today, Shoppers is moving ahead with its plan to market its own private-label generic drugs despite the disapproval of the Ontario government. They plan to sell in seven other Canadian provinces, as well as export products. They are also challenging the Ontario government's regulations forbidding pharmacies from selling their own store-brand products.

The recruiting season just ended. Congratulations to Patrick Dyke, Zarya Cyrander and Harman Dhillon who will be Gilbert's LLP summer students!

So, last Friday - actually, two weeks ago Friday, where does the time go? - I participated in Foreign Affairs’ briefing phone call regarding the Canada-European free trade negotiations. Overall, the negotiators are reportedly making progress - “better than the two sides had anticipated.”

Here's an article by summer student Jamie Goodman on the Bauer v. Easton case and inducing patent infringement in Canada. The Bauer case is being appealed, and it will be interesting to see what happens.

Those of you who know me well know that in the past I have harped on patent office statistics like pendency and backlogs. I think they are important - central, critical even - to understanding how patent law functions in a country.

An interesting article "Tax Accountant Privilege" in this week's Lawyer's Weekly. The lead:

The National Post has an article on shortages in the supply of about 10-15 generic drugs.

If you think that Investor/State disputes are only won by the investors, the Canadian government won a claim last week against Chemtura, a US company that sought $78 million (US) in compensation for banning the use of lindane, which is a fungicide.

Remember the fuss back when Newfoundland took away water and timber rights and expropriated hydroelectric assets from AbitibiBowater? Newfoundland said that under the terms of the 1905 lease, these rights were all contingent on Abitibi operating a mill in the province. Since Abitibi closed the mill (itself a long drawn out affair), all of these assets reverted to the provincial government.

Here's an article by summer student Shaughnessy Hawkins, on Swiss claims, which she published recently on lexology

Swiss Claims in Canada

Interesting though perhaps not surprising development on the drug purchasing front: the Canadian provinces have "teamed up" to purchase drugs for their respective provincial drug plans.

There was some big news last Wednesday in a case I was involved in - a decision by the Federal Court regarding a patent for repaglinide. We (Gilbert's) argued successfully in a PM(NOC)application for Cobalt that Canadian patent no. 2,111,851 (owned by Novo Nordisk) should be invalid - although see the footnote.* This is a big deal because the '851 is an enantiomer patent. There were significant findings of fact and law that should be widely applicable to patents covering enantiomers.

B.C. has also moved to cut the price of generic drugs.

The B.C. government will announce on Friday that it will cut the price of generic drugs by reducing rebates manufacturers pay to pharmacies in return for selling their products, industry sources familiar with the plan said. Unlike Ontario, British Columbia will not abolish the rebates altogether, the sources said.