This Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) decision is the second appeal decision following a 2016 decision of the Federal Court (FC). The 2016 FC decision dismissed the Appellants’ application for infringement of the Appellants’ registered trademarks and passing off.

This decision concerns a motion by the Plaintiffs to seek leave to file reply expert reports from its expert witnesses in a patent impeachment action. The reply expert reports include the experts’ responses to new issues and a rebuttal to the Defendant’s expert’s claim construction based on correspondence with the patent office during prosecution of the patent (s. 53.1(1) of the Patent Act).

Federal Court rules the principles of reply evidence from trial apply to expert reports

In this decision, Prothonotary Aalto emphatically states that the Federal Court expressly has jurisdiction to adjudicate matters of patent ownership.

After a finding that the defendant had infringed the copyright in hundreds of photographs and other materials by reproducing them on several websites by way of summary judgment (see 2019 FC 1524) and an order awarding over $350,000 in statutory damages (see 2020 FC 794), the Court considered the appropriate costs award.

This decision arises out of a motion brought by the Defendant, Sport Maska Inc. (“CCM”), seeking leave to file a supplemental expert report.

Lickerish alleged unauthorized reproduction of two photographs of Meghan Markle on Airg’s website constituting copyright infringement. Lickerish asserted that Dimitry Loiseau, a photographer, took the photographs and entered an exclusive contract with Lickerish for the syndication of the photographs.

In this decision under the PM(NOC) Regulations, Justice Crampton considered three separate issues and found that (1) Allergan’s formulation patent for RAPAFLO was not infringed by Sandoz’s proposed generic product; (2) file wrapper estoppel does not apply to an exclusive licensee; and (3) the formulation patent was not invalid for obviousness.

In this decision, Érablière Escuminac Inc. appealed a decision of the Registrar of Trademarks [the “Registrar”] striking the mark “Escuminac & Design” [the “Mark”] from the Trademark Registry on the basis that Érablière Escuminac failed to produce evidence of use of the Mark.

Federal Court of Appeal Confirms Importance of Proportionality Principle in Discovery