Welcome back to another exciting academic year at IP Osgoode! While we navigate these challenging times and deliver our curriculum virtually, our commitment to student learning and growth remains stronger than ever.
Since the launch of IP Osgoode, we have inspired a fantastic range of diverse contributions in our blog, IPilogue, public events and other activities. We are fortunate to have many people coming together as part of this initiative and are grateful to draw from a growing community of IP & tech enthusiasts.
IP Osgoode Speaks and Bracing for Impact: COVID-19 Webinar Series
Building on the success of our signature Bracing for Impact Conference Series, in our Bracing for Impact: COVID-19 Webinar Series we continue the dialogue bringing together academic scholars, practitioners, and industry leaders from Canada and around the world including Israel and the EU. The series of events will explore critical issues in emerging technologies, data policy and governance strategies, with a focus on AI, blockchain, privacy, disruptive technology and tech innovation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On June 22, 2020, we hosted our first virtual event “Bracing for Impact Webinar Series – COVID-19 Contact Tracing: Legal and Ethical Challenges” in collaboration with the Harry Radzyner Law School at the IDC Herzliya in Israel and Microsoft Canada. The event took place virtually via Microsoft Teams in the format of a panel discussion featuring scholars from Israel and Canada. This was the first webinar of the series, where we discussed the potential challenges and legal and ethical concerns on the use of contact tracing to help contain COVID-19 outbreaks.
Click to download the Webinar recording. Click to read IPilogue post about the event.
Please stay tuned for more details on the upcoming virtual events by visiting our website www.iposgoode.ca.
IP Innovation Clinic ChatBot Launch, date to be announced soon!
We have developed the IP Innovation Clinic ChatBot, to support the provision of free access to basic IP information in a timely, effective and user-friendly way to help especially the under-resourced and foster greater innovation in Canadian society.
Funded by Innovation, Science & Economic Development Canada (ISED) under the National IP Strategy, IP Legal Clinics Program, and with the assistance of technical experts in the Legal Technology Group at Norton Rose and in collaboration with leading partners Maya Medeiros and Anthony de Fazekas, at Norton Rose Fulbright, and the legal supervisors for the Innovation Clinic, the IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic developed an IP Chatbot that will be accessible to the public and provide basic IP law information. Startups, entrepreneurs, and innovators that do not have the necessary resources to access vital IP services. With the help of the IP Innovation clinic ChatBot, the IP Innovation Clinic can alleviate some of these expenses, making IP knowledge more accessible and offer clients valuable IP assistance and information.
The IP Innovation Clinic ChatBot will be hosted on IP Osgoode’s website, iposgoode.ca.
IPilogue
Our IPilogue is one of Canada’s leading IP Blogs with an enthusiastic international following. To date, we have published over 2,449 original posts and 1,398 comments.
The number of visitors to our website and our weekly newsletter (The IPIGRAM) readership continues to grow exponentially and spans the globe. Our team of IPilogue Editors continued to blog throughout the summer and constitutes an important part of our team and our vision of providing a diverse palette of views on intellectual property and technology matters. We are now in the process of recruiting more IPilogue editors for this academic year and look forward to more students to become involved. In order to keep abreast of the latest in IP and technology in Canada and around the world, and to learn more about IP Osgoode’s events and activities, please do subscribe to the IPIGRAM.
IP Intensive
Each year we build upon what we accomplished in previous years in the IP Intensive program and offer our students an even more enriched and engaging experience. For the Fall 2020 term, we are proud to have partnered with three new placement organizations: Alectra Utilities, the Bergeron Entrepreneurs & Science and Technology (BEST) Lab, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Performance and Partnerships branch. We are pleased to welcome our returning placement organizations: Astrazeneca Canada Inc., Canadian Heritage, CBC/Radio-Canada, Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), CMRRA, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada – Copyright and International Intellectual Property Policy Branch, SOCAN, The Globe and Mail, VentureLAB, TEVA Canada Limited, and TVO.
The IP Intensive is a unique program that gives students practical, experiential education in a workplace setting for an entire term in lieu of being in the classroom. Our students gain valuable practical experience which will assist them in obtaining employment after law school, and some of our students’ research in the program has been published in the Intellectual Property Journal (IPJ).
The IP Intensive Program kicks off the first two weeks in September with class seminars featuring experts from the IP community. The seminars cover a wide variety of topics, from “Collective Copyright Administration” to “Intellectual Property Reform Process”, and from “IP Litigation & Remedies” to “Digital Content Platforms & Broadcasting Industry”, to name just a few. Some of our experts speaking include members of the judiciary, officials from the Government of Canada, Canadian and U.S. IP litigation experts, in-house counsel and top executives from a broad range of industries, and practitioners from major Canadian law firms.
Professor David Vaver and I will be the co-directors of the IP Intensive program this year. Throughout the term, we will be meeting with the students periodically to discuss topics relating to intellectual property law, to share their experiences in the work environment, and to participate in a cross-pollination of ideas. The students will also be blogging on the IPilogue and maintaining a reflective journal about their internship experiences. The students will be responsible for leading seminar presentations during the last week of November, and ultimately submitting a major research paper.
If you are interested in attending any of our sessions or participating as a placement organization, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me directly.
IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic
Now in its tenth year of operation, the IP Osgoode’s Innovation Clinic continues to complement Osgoode’s rich history of clinical program offerings by providing students with an opportunity to gain hands-on, practical experience while learning about some of the common early stage IP and business related issues facing under-resourced inventors, entrepreneurs and start-up companies. The Innovation Clinic continues to expand our client base and provide our students with a valuable and unique experiential learning opportunity. We are currently recruiting clinic fellows for the 2020-2021 academic term.
Our Writing Competitions
Gowlings Best Blog in IP Law & Technology Prize
Each year, through the sponsorship of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, four Gowlings Best Blog in IP Law and Technology prizes are awarded to full-time Osgoode students. The recipients for the 2019-2020 academic year were announced on the IP Osgoode website.
Canada’s IP Writing Challenge
IP Osgoode together with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) runs Canada’s IP Writing Challenge in order to further enhance intellectual property public policy research and discussion. This competition is open to three categories of entrants: JD students, LLM and PhD students, and practitioners.
The submission deadline is July 1 every year. This past July, we received a wide range of entries this year from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and institutions across Canada. We thank all those who participated in the Writing Challenge. We are grateful to Dan Bereskin, Professor Ikechi Mgbeoji and Justice Roger Hughes for agreeing to judge the articles again this year. Stay tuned, as we will be announcing the Challenge winners in late October, among various other initiatives.
A community is only as vibrant as its contributors. Given the challenges we are facing with the ongoing pandemic, we continue to confront complex and challenging debates in intellectual property and related areas of technology. Please share with us your ideas, to enrich our program to do our part to make a difference during these unprecedented times.
Pina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, the IP Intensive Program, the Innovation Clinic, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the IPilogue, the Editor-in-Chief of the Intellectual Property Journal, and an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.