Recent CRTC Telecom Decision 2008-6 clarifies the CRTC Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules. Once the CRTC's the third party investigator under the rules is operational, all organizations on whose behalf telemarketing is performed, even those whose only telemarketing activities are exempt from the National Do-Not-Call List (DNCL) Rules, will need to register with and pay the National DNCL operator (currently Bell Canada) and the investigator.  Affected organizations should proceed quickly to comply with these rules, expected to be fully in force by September 30, 2008.

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The United States Federal Court of Appeals has decided to rehear the appeal of In re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw on appeal from the USPTO Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, and has asked for briefs on, among other things, whether and how the landmark patentability cases of State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. and AT&T Corp. v. Excel Communications, Inc. should be reconsidered.      

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The recent High Court decision in Symbian Ltd. v. Comptroller General Of Patents overturned an earlier decision by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) to refuse Symbian's application. The Court concluded that the UKIPO took too narrow a view of the "technical effect" of this invention when applying the so-called "Aerotel/Macrossan test", and that computer programs that go to the reliability of the computer itself may be patentable. The UKIPO has already announced that it will appeal the decision

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On March 6, 2008, the Canadian, Alberta and British Columbia privacy commissions released joint guidelines on how businesses should treat video surveillance containing personal information, and thereby remain in compliance with private-sector privacy legislation.

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