Class Actions for Misrepresentations of Privacy Practices
Since the reports of the large fines that have been issued under GDPR have started making the rounds in the last couple of years, I have seen an increase in concern about being compliant with privacy laws here in Canada. In particular, a couple of questions that I sometimes get asked are “What could happen if our company is not compliant with PIPEDA? Will the Privacy Commissioner come after us with huge fines?” It’s usually a surprise to the asker when I say that, relative to its European counterparts, the Privacy Commissioner has little power in privacy enforcement.
How a COVID vaccine patent waiver could provide real world data on the value of patents
This week, President Biden expressed his support for a proposal before the World Trade Organization (WTO) for waiving certain patent protections for COVID vaccines. In summary, if the proposal goes forward, countries such as India and South Africa would be permitted to exempt the application of vaccine patents within their border without being subject to a trade complaint from other countries. I won’t go into further details of the proposal, if you are looking for one, check out the one at Ars Technica here.
Given the US’s history in pushing for increasing IP rights in bilateral or multilateral trade agreements over and above the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement standards that apply to all WTO members, Biden’s support for this vaccine patent wavier is a pretty big deal. Obviously, the companies that have developed and are selling these vaccines are resistant to the proposal.
