How Agentic Prior Art Searches Have Changed Patent Practice
“What stands out about agentic technology is the extent to which it has allowed penetration of a system that has so frequently seemed impenetrable.” — David Hughes It’s no surprise, perhaps, that the advent of AI-driven agentic prior art searches marks a turning point in patent law practice. How, after all, were mere humans going to […]
Fair Dealing: The Canadian Context
By Julius Melnitzer | May 11, 2026 “In Canada, fair dealing is a creature of statute with a closed list of eligible purposes. Courts have described it as a ‘users’ right’ that provides a ‘fsafety valve’ on the monopoly of copyright.” — Tamara Céline Winegust Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China and most of Southeast […]
Fair Dealing: The Australian Context
“The fair dealing exception in Australia is limited to the purpose-based exceptions listed in the Copyright Act. If a use doesn’t fall within a listed purpose, fair dealing simply does not apply, regardless of fairness.” — Katrina Crooks By Julius Melnitzer | May 8, 2026 Australia’s iteration of the “fair use” doctrine — called “fair dealing”— […]
Can AI Prompts Attract Copyright?
By Julius Melnitzer | April 7, 2026 AI prompts may seem like new territory for the law, but in the end the very old principles that define originality work just fine — Vincent Bergeron For all the growing ubiquity of artificial intelligence in our society, its relationship to the law is still nascent. Although AI is […]
How Agentic Prior Art Searches Have Changed Patent Practice
By Julius Melnitzer | April 1, 2026 What stands out about agentic technology is the extent to which it has allowed penetration of a system that has so frequently seemed impenetrable. — David Hughes It’s no surprise, perhaps, that the advent of AI-driven agentic prior art searches marks a turning point in patent law practice. How, […]
Australia’s Plant Breeders Protection Regime: Promoting Innovation
“Breeders who make decisions without the benefit of patent attorneys’ advice risk not having the strongest protection for their rights and risk losing competitive advantages.” — Dr James-Robert Cram Plant breeding sits at the intersection of science, agriculture, and global trade – an intersection where intellectual property settings can either enable innovation or quietly undermine it […]
Double Patenting: A multi-jurisdictional minefield | Part III: Canada
“Canada has a rather strict system compared to other jurisdictions […], Nonetheless, it is still quite navigable in practice with the guidance of an experienced practitioner.” – Herman Cheung By Julius Melnitzer | March 16, 2026 Canada’s double patenting (DP) regime, which recognizes both “same invention” DP and “obviousness-type double patenting” (OTDP), but has no provision […]
Personality Rights Protection: Canada
“Except for Quebec, a civil law jurisdiction, Canada has very few statutory provisions covering personality rights specifically.” — Daniel Anthony Like New Zealand, Canada’s federal government and common law provinces do not recognize the general, US style “right of publicity” that protects personality rights—the right to control one’s name, image, likeness—as a property right. “Except for Quebec, […]
Personality Rights Protection: New Zealand
“AI increases the risk of misuse of personal information, both in terms of the information that businesses are feeding into, and receiving from, AI platforms.” — Thomas Huthwaite By Julius Melnitzer | March 5, 2026 With the advent of artificially-generated images and viral content, the growing ubiquity of deepfakes and dupes has become a growing concern, […]
The AI Copyright Conundrum: Memorising or Learning?
“Copyright protects reproductions, so from a legal perspective, the way you assess memorisation is by looking at the output.” – Vincent Bergeron By Julius Melnitzer | March 4, 2026 The immediate and growing controversy over whether artificial intelligence (AI) “learns” or “memorises” is raising a foundational challenge to copyright law. What’s ignited the controversy are recent […]