Teresa Scassa - Blog

Refereed Articles

"Text and Context: Making Sense of Canada's New Personal Information Protection Legislation", (2000-2001) 32 Ottawa Law Review 1-34


"The Best Things in Law are Free:  Towards Quality Free Public Access to Primary Legal Materials in Canada", (2000) 23 Dalhousie Law Journal 301-336

This paper examines the move, in the 1990s in Canada, towards making primary legal materials freely available to the public over the internet.   The paper begins by assessing the situation in Canada at the time of writing, and the need for a centralized and harmonized electronic portal for primary legal materials.  I consider initiatives in other jurisdictions aimed at providing comprehensive free public access, and explore the rationales for developing and providing such access.  I explore some of the implications and questions raised by the provision of publicly accessible primary legal materials.  These include the concepts of  “public” and “access”, concerns about information monopolies, the role of lawyers as "infomediaries" and the normative implications of "freeing" the law.


"Patents for Second Medical Indications:  Issues and Implications for Pharmacare in Canada", (2001) 9 Health Law Journal 23-59

This issue of second medical indication patents and their implications is an important one, as it has the potential to raise costs significantly for already cash-strapped provincial drug programs.  It may also have implications for privately funded drug plans, and hence for the cost of private drug insurance programs.  At the very least, it may impose costs on provincial health departments to defend themselves in any potential patent infringement actions taken against them.  It has also been argued that to list drugs as only partially interchangeable in provincial drug formularies will place difficult burdens on pharmacists and those who prescribe drugs, and may expose them directly to patent liability issues.  This paper considers both the issues raised by the decision in Apotex v. Ontario, and the implications for health departments, doctors and pharmacists.


"Intellectual Property on the Cyber-Picketline:  A Comment on British Columbia Automobile Assn v. Office and Professional Employees' International Union, Local 378", (2002) 39 Alberta Law Review 934-962

This paper is a lengthy and critical comment on the decision of the British Columbia Supreme Court, British Columbia Automobile Assn v. Office and Professional Employees' International Union, Local 378.. The case remains an important decision on issues of passing off, trademark and copyright infringement relating to websites, domain names and meta tags.  In this paper I explore these issues, all of which may commonly arise in situations of alleged competition between websites.  The case thus provides a context for exploring legitimate and unlawful uses of domain names and meta tags, copyright infringement, and web site design, and touches on the role of s. 22 of the Trade-marks Act.  Because BCAA also occurs in the context of a labour dispute, it raises further issues about intellectual property rights and freedom of expression.  In this context, I examine the balance being struck between monopolistic intellectual property rights and the fundamental right of freedom of expression.


“A Mouse is a Mouse is a Mouse:  A Comment on the Supreme Court of Canada’s Decision on the Harvard Mouse Patent”, (2003) 3 Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal 105-118

On December 5, 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its long awaited decision in President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Canada (Commissioner of Patents). Known as the Harvard Mouse case, it had its genesis in the Canadian Patent Commissioner’s decision to deny a patent over a genetically engineered creature known as the “oncomouse”.  The mouse, which has been patented in the United States, numerous European countries, and Japan, brought to the forefront in Canada the issue of whether a higher life form could be the subject of a patent.  After dividing opinions below, the issue also split the Supreme Court of Canada, resulting in a somewhat surprising 5-4 ruling that the definition of “invention” in the Patent Act  did not extend to include a higher life form such as the oncomouse.  The split is a profound one.  While the majority of the Court reflects what can almost be characterized as a precautionary approach to patenting higher life forms, the dissenting justices emphasize the economic and global imperatives of interpreting Canada’s patent legislation consistently with that of other Western nations, so as to recognize patents over virtually all forms of innovation. This paper is a comment on the decision in the case.


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Canadian Trademark Law

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Electronic Commerce and Internet Law in Canada, 2nd Edition

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Intellectual Property for the 21st Century

Intellectual Property Law for the 21st Century:

Interdisciplinary Approaches

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