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IP law update:
Patent pending
In a hyper-competitive global marketplace,
companies that want to capitalize on
innovation must move fast to protect their
intellectual property.
By Virginia Galt
B
y coincidence, on the very
day Victor Butsky granted an
interview on the essential role
of patent law in the new
knowledge economy, the
Federal Court of Canada came out with
a breakthrough decision: Business methods are patentable under Canadian law.
The business method, in this
instance, was amazon.com’s “oneclick” process for online purchasing,
and, although it was not Butsky’s case,
Victor Butsky
Deeth Williams & Wall LLP
Patent claims must be
broad, yet precise enough
to survive an attack.
Décembre 2010
the Federal Court decision broadens
the scope for all practitioners involved
in patent and intellectual property law
in Canada.
“It’s been the subject of considerable
debate . . . in terms of what the
Canadian approach would be,” said
Butsky, a chemical engineer-turnedlawyer and a founding member of
Toronto-based Deeth Williams and
Wall LLP, which specializes in information technology.
“It’s certainly a very helpful case
for clarification,” Butsky said. (The
Federal Court found that the federal
Commissioner of Patents erred in concluding that business methods were
excluded from protection under
Canadian patent law and sent amazon.com’s patent application back to
the commission for “expedited reexamination.”)
Innovation is the lifeblood of the
new economy, Butsky said. However,
businesses that fail to protect their
intellectual property risk being overtaken and left behind in the hyper-competitive global marketplace. Time is of the
essence, he added.
“Most of the world is on a first-tofile system . . . You have to do it early
and you have to do it before somebody
else beats you to the filing stage,”
Butsky said, adding that patent claims
ought to be sufficiently broad to discourage infringement by competitors,
but precise enough to survive potential
attacks on their validity.
Matthew Zischka, an electrical engineer and a partner at Smart & Biggar
LLP in Toronto, said some of the
world’s biggest multinationals, “the
IBMs, the Sonys, the Samsungs, are all
w w w. c b a . o r g
massive patent filers because they
believe in the system and they use it . . .
“They spend a lot of money on
research and development, they spend a
lot of money on their engineers and they
want to get some return on that investment,” Zischka said.
With freer global trade and competition, intellectual property treaties
have been strengthened by governments around the world in return for
access to other markets, Zischka
added. “The whole idea that you can
freeload on the ideas of others has
been addressed, at some level, by
requiring all the trade participants in
Matthew Zischka
Smart & Biggar LLP
“Massive patent filers”
like IBM want a return
on R&D investment.
this global economy to shore up their
IP laws, so IP is given a greater consideration, respect and value.”
Of course there are, and always will
be, costly disputes and litigation around
patent and intellectual property rights,
Zischka said. More typically, however,
the existence of a patent has a deterrent
effect against copycat competitors .
“The system does provide great benefits and it does provide a mechanism
for reaping the rewards of true innovation, and that just wouldn’t be the case
if we didn’t have a patent system,” said
Zischka, whose specialty areas include
telecommunications, computers and
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vous donneront pas d’argent si vous
n’avez pas les droits sur les brevets. »
Comme l’a montré la récente décision de la Cour fédérale dans la cause
d’amazon.com, l’étendue de ce qui
peut être breveté de nos jours dépasse
largement le champ des produits manufacturiers, ce qui rend le domaine d’autant intéressant, particulièrement pour
des scientifiques comme Mes Butsky,
Gravelle et Zischka.
« La plupart des gens qui pratiquent
dans ce domaine ont des connaissances
techniques et ils peuvent généralement
Micheline Gravelle
Bereskin & Parr LLP
comprendre les inventions, souligne
Matthew Zischka. Vous êtes exposés à
tellement de nouvelles et chouettes idées
et à beaucoup de gens très créatifs, qui
passent beaucoup de temps et d’énergie
pour tenter d’en arriver à la prochaine
The cost of a patent
application is “small potatoes”
compared to the cost of
taking a drug to market.
invention de l’heure. » N
semi-conductors.
But it’s not just the deep-pocketed
IBMs of the world that benefit, said
Micheline Gravelle, a former cancer
researcher who switched to law and
now heads the biotechnology and pharmaceutical practice at Bereskin & Parr
LLP in Toronto.
“For small companies, financing is
everything,” Gravelle said. “They can’t
even make it to the clinical trials stage
without getting money, and nobody is
going to invest in them, nobody is going
to give them venture capital unless they
have filed for a patent application. . .
“For our university clients, again,
they don’t really have the resources or
the infrastructure to really take anything to market. They do the basic science, so when they come up with something interesting, there’s always the ability to license that to a big company, big
pharma might come in and license. But
big pharma is not going to give you revenue to license something if you don’t
have the patent rights.”
In the biotech field, most patent
applications are filed at “the very early
stage,” Gravelle said.
“Often they [the scientists] come to
us because they have seen something
FRANÇAIS / ANGLAIS
Dictionnaire juridique
de la propriété au Canada
Disponible en ligne
Droit civil / Common Law
Volume I
UN OUTIL DE TRAVAIL INDISPENSABLE POUR CHAQUE ARTICLE OFFRE :
LES JURISTES CANADIENS
Le cadre juridique canadien se distingue en droit
privé par l’interaction des systèmes juridiques de
droit civil et de common law et par l’usage des
deux langues officielles du Canada, le français et
l’anglais. Soucieux de refléter ces caractéristiques
uniques du droit fédéral, le ministère de la Justice
du Canada rend disponible en ligne un outil
totalement inédit, le Dictionnaire juridique de la
propriété au Canada.
L’ABC DES CONCEPTS EN DROIT DE LA
PROPRIÉTÉ
Indispensable aux juristes amenés à œuvrer en
droit fédéral, ce dictionnaire identifie pour chacun
des concepts qu’il décrit leur origine systémique
et les situe avec précision dans l’ensemble du
réseau notionnel auquel ils appartiennent. Il s’agit
d’un outil incomparable d’apprentissage et de
compréhension des caractéristiques essentielles
des systèmes juridiques de droit privé au Canada.
• UN FORMAT BILINGUE ALIGNÉ
• DES ÉQUIVALENTS TRADUCTIONNELS
ATTESTÉS CORRESPONDANT À LA
LEXICALISATION BILINGUE DES
CONCEPTS DÉCRITS
• UNE DÉFINITION BRÈVE ET PRÉCISE
ASSORTIE D’EXTRAITS PRÉSENTANT
L’UTILISATION COURANTE DU CONCEPT
EN CONTEXTE JUDICIAIRE
• UNE PARTIE « SÉMANTIQUE »
ILLUSTRANT LES RAPPORTS ENTRE
CONCEPTS QUI PERMET DE SITUER LE
CONCEPT DANS LA STRUCTURE PLUS
VASTE DU SYSTÈME JURIDIQUE
AUQUEL IL APPARTIENT
• DIVERS INDEX FACILITANT LA
CONSULTATION DES ENTRÉES
EN PLUS…
• UN GUIDE D’UTILISATION DÉTAILLÉ
PRÉSENTANT CHACUN DES ÉLÉMENTS
DU DICTIONNAIRE
This information is available in English.
Décembre 2010
w w w. c b a . o r g
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UNPARALLELED
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really interesting in the lab, in the test
tube. They may have seen a compound
mixed with the cancer cells that can
kill cancer cells. But whether it’s going
to be a blockbuster anti-cancer drug?
That’s 10 to 15 years out . . . They
have to go through proving it works in
animals, through to humans in the
clinical trials,” said Gravelle.
It can cost in the neighbourhood of
$1-billion to take a drug to market,
Gravelle said, adding that the cost of
filing an application for a patent is
“small potatoes” in comparison.
“So really they have no choice.
They have to file, because if it turns
out to be the big blockbuster down the
road, if they haven’t filed for a patent,
there’s no opportunity to do it later,”
Gravelle said. “You have to file before
you publish.”
Confidentiality is crucial before the
patent application is filed, and it is not
always easy to persuade inventors to
keep those eureka moments to themselves, the lawyers said.
“That is very important,” Butsky
said.
“Unfortunately, sometimes through
over-exuberance or excitement, some
entrepreneurs may think, ‘I need to get
this out there so we can capture interest,’ forgetting that it’s absolutely
fatal” in terms of applying for patent
protection once the secret is out,
Butsky said.
The scope of what can be patented
goes well beyond the traditional manufacturing realm now, which makes
patent and intellectual property law an
exciting field to work in, particularly
for lawyers like Butsky, Gravelle and
Zischka, who come from scientific and
engineering backgrounds.
“I think most people who practise
in the field do have technical knowledge and they can actually understand
the inventions. . . You get exposed to so
many new and nifty ideas, as well as a
lot of very creative people who spend a
lot of time and energy coming up with
the next great thing,” Zischka said.
“What I loved about coming here
[to Bereskin & Parr] was working with
the scientists, using the science, and
actually being the one writing the
patent applications and fighting
around the world to get the patents
through,” added Gravelle, who left the
lab for the law profession because she
felt she could make a bigger contribution by getting involved in the “business end of science.” N
Virginia Galt is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
34
N AT I O N A L
December 2010