Publications

October 5, 2017

Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence

Although artificial intelligence has been evolving constantly in the past few years, the law sometimes has difficulty keeping pace with such developments. Intellectual property issues are especially important: businesses investing in these technologies must be sure that they can take full advantage (…)

August 2, 2017

Deceptive Online Marketing Practices: Intermediaries, what is your legal exposure?

In recent decades, online advertising has become the single most efficient and interactive way to reach consumers and assess their behaviour. While television and print audiences continue to dwindle and overall marketing strategies that focus on these mediums are less able to effectively measure and (…)

June 14, 2017

“Like our Facebook page and you could win a tablet computer” - are you following the rules?

Promotional contests are among the advertising activities favoured by businesses. In the age of social media, they are increasingly frequent and popular — “Win a trip down South!”, “Fantastic stroller to be won among everyone who likes our Facebook page!”. However, not everyone is aware of all the (…)

May 16, 2017

When artificial intelligence is discriminatory

Artificial intelligence has undergone significant developments in the last few years, particularly in respect of what is now known as deep learning.1 This method is the extension of the neural networks which have been used for a few years for machine learning. Deep learning, as any other form of (…)

May 1, 2017

Artificial intelligence and its legal challenges

Is there a greater challenge than to write a legal article on an emerging technology that does not exist yet in its absolute form? Artificial intelligence, through a broad spectrum of branches and applications, will impact corporate and business integrity, corporate governance, distribution of (…)

March 29, 2017

Artificial intelligence: contractual obligations beyond the buzzwords

Can computers learn and reason? If so, what are the limitations of the tasks that they can be given? These questions have been the subject of countless debate as far back as 1937, when Alan Turing published his work on computable numbers1. Many researchers have devoted themselves to developing (…)

March 23, 2017

Artificial Intelligence and the 2017 Canadian Budget: is your business ready?

The March 22, 2017 Budget of the Government of Canada, through its “Innovation and Skills Plan” (http://www.budget.gc.ca/2017/docs/plan/budget-2017-en.pdf) mentions that Canadian academic and research leadership in artificial intelligence will be translated into a more innovative economy and (…)

November 22, 2016

Public display of trade marks in a language other than French – Coming into force of the regulatory amendments

On May 4, 2016, a draft regulation amending the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business was published in the Gazette officielle du Québec (see our bulletin on this subject). On November 3, 2016, the Quebec government announced that the amendments to the Regulation respecting the (…)

May 13, 2016

Public display of trade marks in a language other than French

In 20141, major retailers Best Buy Canada Ltd., Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd., Gap (Canada) Inc., Old Navy (Canada) Inc., Guess? Canada Corporation, Wal-Mart Canada Corp., Toys “R” Us Canada Ltd. and Curves International Inc. had filed a motion for declaratory judgment before the Superior Court for (…)

March 23, 2016

Tax relief to stimulate commercialization of intellectual property made in Québec

Inspired by a worldwide trend to encourage the growth of innovation, Québec has recently announced a new tax relief measure for innovative companies.  Thus, the Québec government is instituting an “innovative companies deduction” (ICD). The goal of this initiative is to “ensure that innovations (…)

November 13, 2015

English trademarks on public signs – Expected changes

Last April 27, the Court of Appeal of Quebec dismissed the appeal, from the bench, by the Attorney General of Quebec concerning the use of English trademarks on public signs. The Attorney General was contesting the judgment rendered by the Honourable Michel Yergeau of the Superior Court who held (…)

October 23, 2015

Advance Tax Credit Financing

Corporations that are in need of liquidities can, simply put, not afford to wait until the end of the fiscal year to receive payment of refundable tax credits. For this reason, some lenders offer to advance funds to eligible taxpaying corporations (hereinafter “Taxpayers”) in the form of a loan, (…)

July 9, 2015

Use of Social Media by Employees

In this age of social networks, the dividing line between private life and public life seems more and more blurred. The same is true of the boundary between individuals' personal and professional lives. Indeed, headlines in the past few weeks remind us that the personal and professional aspects of (…)