Daily Archives: 09/11/2022

Canada One Step Closer to Adopting C-27 and IA-specific Legislation

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The Canadian government reiterated last week that we’re collectively moving forward with the revamp of the country’s federal privacy legislation, including an offshoot meant to curb (better control, some would say) rampant and unrestricted adoption of artificial intelligence (“AI”) throughout. At the same time, the bill at issue (named C-27) moved to the second reading stage, bringing us one step closer to a formal adoption of this piece of legislation.

Bill C-27 will reinforce personal information protection throughout Canada but updating a law that is now more than 20 years old and, many would say, quite outdated. The new version of the personal information protection statute at issue will include provisions meant to generally empower individuals in a way that allows them to exercise control over their data, something the current version of the legislation has largely failed to do. Though it’s not quite GDPR, many see this new version of the Canadian privacy legislation as a much needed shot in the arm for our federal privacy regime.

At the same time, this project will likely also include Canada adopting a whole new statute meant to better control the use of AI (e.,g. by businesses), including new rules to try and minimize scenarios where AI is implemented in a way that is incompatible with personal rights and freedoms as well as Canadian values.

The Canadian government clearly says it intends to move forward with all of these. Now, it’s mostly a question of going through the rest of the legislative process, but there’s little doubt that this thing will become law before long. Stay tuned.

A Sign of the Globalizing of U.S. Trademark Law?

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The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear next year an appeal against a recent decision from Texas holding that American trademark law may sometimes be made to apply to foreign sales of trademarks merchandise. Yup, you read this right.

As one will remember, trademark law (as with most laws) may apply within a given country that adopted or applies this law but will not generally apply once you cross the border. Though there are plenty of exceptions to this, one can still rely on the fact that, in the normal course of things, rules that apply IN a country will not apply as to what goes on OUTSIDE of that country. For example, owning a Canadian trademark registration is nice, but it won’t allow you to stop a Brazilian company from selling goods in South America, even if they are stamped with that same specific trademark.

A recent American case (Abitron Austria v. Hetronic International) involves partly doing away with this, as the court at issue concluded that it could impose liability as to trademark infringement (to the sweet tune of $90M, no less) by basing the calculation of damages on worldwide sales by the infringer. According to the court in this case, demonstration by the plaintiff that it had lost sale IN the U.S. justifies granting it substantial damages because, well, you know, the bad guys caused an American company some lost sales, so they SHOULD be liable under American law, right? (This is a Texas case, need I say more?)

This is of course NOT how things work normally, which is why most businesses making sales abroad (including the likes of Amazon) can operate without getting constantly being sued in the U.S. because something they sold somewhere reflected a trademark that was protected in the U.S. Causing confusion in the U.S. that results in actual lost sales in the U.S. is one thing, but being on the hook just because you had the gull of making foreign sales is another altogether.

This may become really uncomfortable for a lot of business operating outside the U.S. if that specific case is allowed to stand and ends-up catching on. Were something like this to represent a shift in the way American trademark law handles U.S. trademark infringement claims when international sales by an “infringer” are involved, a lot of businesses (including Canadian ones) may end-up in trouble. Hmm, should I stop telling my clients that U.S. trademark registrations have an effect only in the U.S.?

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear this case next year and, hopefully for Canadian businesses, reconsider how damages were assessed in this particular case. We’ll see.