Canadian Startup and Video Game Law Blog
Startup and video game law, from a Canadian and U.S. perspective
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Expedited Trademark Examinations in Canada
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) recently announced that it will be accepting requests for expedited examination of trademark applications along with other measures to speed up the trademark registration process in Canada. Before the recent announcements, CIPO took approximately 24-30 months to issue an examiner’s report (also called an office action). The new measures...
Intellectual Property Rights for Video Game Studios
For our video game clients, protecting intellectual property is an important part of their business. Intellectual property protection for a video game commonly comes in the form of trademark and copyright but may also involve patents and trade secrets Trademarks can protect the titles and logos associated with a game. Without a registered trademark, another studio could...
Real World Items in Games
When creating realistic video games, developers often desire to render real-world items digitally but neglect considering rights held in these items. A failure to investigate rights held in real-world items is not limited to smaller studios as major developers (ex. Activision) have been sued for using real-world items in their games, such as AM General’s Hummer...
NDA Pitfalls
Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are a critical part of a technology company’s legal arsenal but are often relegated to a standard template without much thought. Too often, I’ve seen NDAs sent by sophisticated companies that contain a number of pitfalls that often negate some of the protections that NDAs are relied upon for. While there are numerous...