Three certainties: bureaucracy, taxes and bagels
By Marcel Strigberger | November 13, 2025 A sudden impulse struck me recently at my nearby Sobey’s supermarket, causing me to buy a package of bagel chips. For the uninitiated, this product consists of about one bagel or so, toasted, thinly sliced, and packaged. Unlike its one-piece version, which sells for about a dollar, this […]
Partnership, Not the Holy Grail, Part 9: She Left The Suds In the Bucket and the Clothes Hanging Out on the Line
Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev at Pexels By Murray Gottheil | November 12, 2025 Getting into a partnership can be exciting. Staying in one is often more of a mixed bag. But exiting a partnership? Now we have something to talk about! Some of my best client work involved partnership break-ups. They can become very nasty, very […]
China’s New Draft Trademark Law Strengthens Brand Protection
“To navigate the new regime effectively, registered trademark owners must proactively maintain evidence of use, monitor third-party filings, and act swiftly against infringements.” – Amy Chan By Julius Melnitzer | November 7, 2025 China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has proposed a new law aimed at strengthening trademark protection. From the perspective of foreign businesses and […]
Duping the Dupes: An IP Rights Holder’s Combat Strategy
“Fast fashion, fast beauty, and the like have combined with the rise of social media influencers who can quickly promote low-cost goods in ways never seen before to create a perfect competitive storm for rights holders.” – Thomas Huthwaite By Julius Melnitzer | November 6, 2025 Monitoring “dupes”—products that mimic the look, feel and function of […]
The Corporation—Neither a Soul to Be Damned nor an Ass to Be Kicked
By Marcel Strigberger | November 4. 2025 Just one more thing … There’s something that bothers me – – – Columbo I shall start off by quoting Shakespeare: “Fie on the company!” Well, to be accurate, the bard did say the fie part. Now retired from practice, I am reflecting on what it is about […]
Partnership, Not the Holy Grail, Part Eight: All for One, but Me for Me
Photo by Pexels By Murray Gottheil | November 3, 2025 Back in the days when everything seemed to be a binary choice, I was a young man who saw many things in black and white. At the time, I would classify law firms as being one of two types. Type One were “real” partnerships, where people […]
Bare Bones Briefs: App predicts judges’ behaviour | Alberta lawyer challenges Law Society’s “wokism” | Solicitor sparks “collective screaming” for stress relief | Are “lawyer apprenticeships” the future of legal education?
By Julius Melnitzer | October 31, 2025 PROFILING THE JUDICIARY DMS developer NetDocuments has joined the wave of judicial analytics app creators, growing the number of profile creator software offerings to eighteen. According to Artificial Lawyer, the Judge Analytics App “transforms curated collections of judicial order into a structured dataset”. The developer claims that users […]
BARE BONES BRIEFS: Reports that prove lawyers’ well-being is a joke | So is Canadian lawyers’ concern for rule of law | AI hallucinations up 250% in court decisions | Jeffrey Bradshaw co-heads DLA Piper’s Canadian restructuring group | Lawyer is Miss Great Britain
By Julius Melnitzer | October 30, 2025 MORE EVIDENCE THAT LAWYERS’ WELL-BEING IS AN ILLUSION Three news reports have surfaced indicating that lawyers’ well-being may be more talk than walk: Related Article: For all the brouhaha, law firms – and especially Canadian firms – are still “missing the boat” on wellness – and profit DO […]
IP Disputes: To Arbitrate or Not?
“Arbitration in multi-jurisdictional IP disputes helps avoid inconsistent outcomes and duplication of work, and promotes streamlining of resources, all under the watchful eye of a neutral expert in the field as opposed to a national court that could be seen by one side as partial.” — Fortunat Nadima The expanding commercialisation of intellectual property (IP) rights—through […]
The Road Less Travelled
Yesterday, I took a walk in the woods on a road abandoned long ago. It reminded me of the journey we take in life. Sometimes the road is clear, and other times we must look a little harder for the right road. Its outline may be there, but we might have to climb over a […]