Photo by Mads Donald at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | January 15, 2026 I spent last winter on cruise ships, trying to escape the cold, the snow, and everything back home that reminded me of working in a law firm. With a cruise ship comes shore excursions, and with shore excursions come buses, and with buses […]
By Marcel Strigberger | January 14, 2026 Ever hear of a place in Russia called Khanty-Mansiysk? Didn’t think so. Vladimir Rychagov was a factory worker there, until he hit the jackpot, or rather helped himself to it. Through a software glitch, his employer deposited the salaries of 34 of its employees into his bank account, being over […]
By Natascha Ibowski | January 12, 2026 When powerful states act in secrecy and justify it afterward as “necessary,” the problem is not a lack of intelligence. It is a failure of attention. Recent developments on the stage of global affairs got me thinking about how the current climate reveals an all too familiar pattern: […]
By Julius Melnitzer | January 8, 2026 The NID objection is seen as a unique barrier to doing business in Canada – Elliott Gold Since the 2019 wholesale amendments to Canada’s Trademarks Act introduced the “not inherently distinctive” (NID) objection to trademark (TM) registration, which gave examiners the power to adjudicate distinctiveness at the prosecution stage, it has […]
By Murray Gottheil | January 5, 2026 [Note from Murray: Many of my readers are younger professionals. They may not be crazy about the content of this article. In my defense, I can be a curmudgeon sometimes, but that does not necessarily invalidate my old-fashioned opinions!] After much thought, I have concluded that young people should […]
By Julius Melnitzer | January 4, 2026 RATES HIT NEW BOTTOM FOR LEGAL AID LAWYERS $193.20 for 15 hours: that’s what the UK government paid an experienced lawyer for publicly-funded family law work. And according to a recent Bar Council report, that news doesn’t come close to revealing the personal cost of taking on legal […]
By Marcel Strigberger · December 27, 2025 Until a recent experience at my local Tim Hortons, I did not know that there were striking similarities between judges and Santa Clauses. I was sipping my medium double-double when I overhead a group of young children at an adjacent table. They sounded a lot like lawyers sizing up judges at […]
By Julius Melnitzer | December 22, 2025 “More things are becoming potentially discoverable in trademark searches, and faster, because of how interconnected we are and how much we live our lives, and conduct our commerce, over the internet” — Tamara Céline Winegust Artificial intelligence (AI) is turning trademark (TM) watching from a tedious necessity to a strategic […]
By Julius Melnitzer | December 21, 2025 “The digital age simply provides a new context for traditional IP questions around authorship, originality, ownership, and the fair use of art” — Eloise Calder In an increasingly digital world, technologies like generative AI have made efficiency key, amplifying the desire for instant gratification and shortening attention spans – […]
By Marcel Strigberger | December 4, 2025 Hey, Your Honour, I can see what’s under your wig. Actually, this talent is not that farfetched. AI is getting us there. I’ve recently heard about apps that transform curated collections of judicial orders, thereby giving lawyers an idea of how judges rule in different scenarios. Are the […]