Student essay competitions

  • May 03, 2016

National Intellectual Property Law School Essay award winner

The CBA National Intellectual Property Law Section is pleased to announced that Alexander Eckler is the winner of its annual essay competition. The award was established to promote and reward interest in intellectual property law topics in Canadian law schools.

Eckler, a 2016 JD candidate at the University of Toronto, won for his paper Nobody Knows Anything... Except your Idea: The Law of Story Ideas in Canada and the US.

His undergrad studies were also completed at the U of T, where he had a double major in international relations and film studies. His interest in the artistic, business and legal facets of the film industry were developed through work experience at the Canadian Film Centre, the Toronto International Film Festival, a film publicity agency and as a production assistant on a feature film.

Eckler’s paper is published on the section website (in English only). Here is an abstract:

Under Canadian law, ideas have traditionally fallen outside the scope of copyright protection. This presents a common problem for screenwriters and other content creators in the entertainment industry. They are frequently asked to pitch their ideas to producers or representatives of media companies without the assurance that their ideas will be legally protected under copyright law. A wealth of case law concerning this dilemma has developed in the United States, however jurisprudence on this issue remains relatively sparse in Canada. This paper examines the American idea protection regimes that have been used within the entertainment industry, the regimes available under Canadian law and how those Canadian regimes might be applied to the screenwriter-producer scenario. A comparison of idea protection under U.S. and Canadian law reveals that Canadian courts have appeared more plaintiff-friendly in applying equitable remedies to idea theft.

U of T student Kellie Mildren wins 2016 Atrium law school essay competition

The CBA Construction and Infrastructure Law Section is pleased to announce that Kellie Mildren is the winner of the 2nd annual Atrium Law School Essay Competition. The award was established by the section to promote and reward interest in construction and infrastructure law topics in Canadian law schools.

Mildren is a third-year student in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. She completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Queen’s School of Business, and previously worked in financial administration in her father’s small residential construction business in Hamilton. In her second year, she summered at Bird Construction, a national general contractor, and received exposure to legal work on large infrastructure projects. She will be completing her articles with Bird Construction in 2016.

Her winning paper, The Legal Implications of the Joint Construction Venture, examines how the joint venture as a distinct legal concept has never been fully developed in Canadian law, and how as a result Canadian courts are empowered to take a contextual approach to extending partnership-like rules, depending on the unique characteristics of any particular non-partnership relationship.

Have a look at the full winning paper (English only).