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 […]
Double Patenting: A multi-jurisdictional minefield | Part II: New Zealand & Australia
“New Zealand’s current regime is more closely allied with other countries, including Australia, than it was before.” – Sam Ting By Julius Melnitzer | February 3, 2026 New Zealand and Australia both allow divisional applications. Although both prohibit double patenting, their laws and rules are not the same, and recent developments in New Zealand have narrowed […]
Double Patenting: A multi-jurisdictional minefield | Part I: China, Hong Kong & Southeast Asia
In China, there is no doctrine preventing an applicant from obtaining multiple patents for obvious variants, patentably indistinct subject matter, or incremental improvements, so long as the claims are not identical in scope – Michael Huang Double patenting doctrine worldwide builds on the principle that an inventor is entitled to only one patent for each invention. […]
Applied Marks: IPH’s Unique Online Trademark Registration Platform
By Julius Melnitzer | February 10, 2026 “Many business owners believe that having a company name, a domain name, and/or a trading name provides them with the exclusive right to promote their brand. But only trademark registration affords the legal right to a brand name.” — Binh Rey IPH Limited is an intellectual property (IP) services network […]
When Patent Law Meets Competition Law
By Julius Melnitzer | February 6, 2026 “Competition issues can arise at various points in the patent life cycle, including the filing stage, during licensing or commercialisation, litigation, and with respect to distribution practices.” – Chen Li Patent law confers exclusivity. Competition law shuns monopolies. The two are bound to clash. “Competition issues can arise at […]
Patent Term Adjustment in Canada and the US: A Comparison
By Julius Melnitzer | February 3, 2026 “Applicant behaviour during prosecution has little bearing on PTA in most instances in Canada.” — Jeff Leuschner Patent term adjustment (PTA)—the mechanism that extends a patent’s term beyond the usual 20-year expiry date when granting authorities have unreasonably delayed its issue—is now available in Canada, more than a quarter […]
Coping with the “Not Inherently Distinctive” Objection in the Canada Trademarks Act
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 […]
AI-Driven Trademark Searches: A Necessity Turned Weaponry?
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 […]
Art & IP Law in the Digital Age
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 – […]