Archive for April, 2012

The Practice of Law
April 13th, 2012

It seems like only yesterday I was attending my first motion, settlement conference and spending countless hours deciphering paper jams, but here I am eight months down and just two to go. With the anticipation of my Bar Call in June fast approaching perhaps the one thing I have learned most during my articles is the true meaning of the term ‘Practicing Law’.

While I have had the opportunity to work toward improving certain aspects of my practice by attending to similar matters over and over, I have quickly realized that even the most trivial of matters can keep you on your toes. For example, when you think you had perfected the best way of advocating for a particular client within the realm of a small claims settlement conference, you soon meet your match, whether it be an unreasonable unrepresented, a brilliant opposing counsel or a hardened judge.  One again you are back to practicing new techniques and learning new ways of advocating.  It all comes back to practice, and if I have learned one thing during my articles it’s that the practice part of law never ends.

Posted in: Articling Student, DSF
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Buyer Beware
April 13th, 2012

Did you know that under Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, a purchaser of a business will be deemed to be a successor employer, at least for the purpose of calculating reasonable notice of termination, if it hires an employee who worked for the company being sold within 13 weeks of the earlier of the employee’s last day of employment with the previous employer and the date of the sale – even if the employer was terminated with notice or pay in lieu of notice before the business was sold!  Moreover, the new business would not get credit for any termination payments received by the employer from the previous business.  That means, the employer is entitled to notice or pay in lieu of notice from the new business having regard to the day he or she started employment with the original business.

Posted in: DSF, Employment Law
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Sounds about right
April 2nd, 2012

This week the Canadian Trade-Marks Office announced that effective immediately it will begin to accept applications for sound-based trade-marks.

This decision stems from a recent Federal Court decision overturning the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO)’s refusal to register MGM’s famous “lion’s roar” sound as a trade-mark.

Traditionally, it has been a requirement that trade-marks be easily represented visually, either as a word, phrase or logo.  While the Trade-Marks Office will still require an application for a sound mark to include “a drawing that graphically represents the sound” (e.g. as a waveform depiction of the sound), this decision may open the door for CIPO to allow other non-traditional trade-marks in the future, such as moving images, holograms, scents, tastes and textures.

For the time being, new applications for sound marks may only be submitted by way of a paper application, and must include a recording of the sound mark in MP3 or WAVE format, limited to 5 megabytes in size, and recorded on a CD or a DVD.

For more information on registering traditional or non-traditional trade-marks, contact Cory Schneider.

Posted in: DSF, Intellectual Property
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