New technologies and new ideas drive today's economy, which makes intellectual property a key factor in business success. While intellectual property is especially vital for high-technology firms, its importance cuts across industry sectors as well as national boundaries. Businesses have a growing need for innovative legal advisers in Canada and around the world to help them exploit their intellectual property to the fullest extent and in as many markets as possible while reducing the risks of that exploitation.

Among the areas in which Stikeman Elliott provides intellectual property expertise and assistance are:

• Registration of trade-marks, patents, industrial designs and copyrights

  Stikeman Elliott regularly files Canadian trade-mark, patent, industrial design and copyright applications on behalf of clients and assists in filing similar applications applied for in other countries;
  
  

• Acquisition, protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights, in Canada and abroad

  Stikeman Elliott counsels Canadian and foreign clients on the manner in which they may protect their intellectual property, acquire the intellectual property of others and best exploit their intellectual property portfolio. We also regularly advise clients and draft agreements on the franchising, licensing and assignment of intellectual property rights in a wide variety of contexts, including character licensing, as well as agreements respecting merchandising, sponsorship, and use of intellectual property as security. Stikeman Elliott has also acted for clients with regard to clarifying ownership of rights in major international sporting and entertainment events, including the 1972 Canada-U.S.S.R. Summit Series;
  
  

• Intellectual property litigation

  Stikeman Elliott represents clients in all areas of intellectual property litigation, including trade-mark, patent, industrial designs or copyright infringement actions before Canadian courts and proceedings before administrative tribunals such as the Trade-marks Opposition Board, the Copyright Board and the Patent Medicine Prices Review Board;
  
  

• Corporate transactions

  Stikeman Elliott represents clients in a variety of corporate transactions, such as licensing, public offerings, joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, many of which involve significant intellectual property rights. The Intellectual Property Group works with corporate, tax, trade and other lawyers to evaluate intellectual property aspects of corporate transactions, such as carrying out intellectual property due diligence searches in corporate acquisitions and assisting clients throughout the transfer of technology process. We have acted in a divestiture of flight simulation technology, an acquisition of rights in a manufacturing business in the food sector, and in a global acquisition of a leading specialty chemical business;
  
  

• Advanced technology interests

  Stikeman Elliott has been increasingly called upon by clients to assist them with the intellectual property implications of their involvement in advanced technologies, such as computer software or hardware, multimedia productions, tele-communications, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, to name a few. To this end, we have negotiated and drafted licence, distribution, maintenance and support, confidentiality, joint development and research agreements, as well as employment and other agreements setting out the rights of business enterprises - both established and budding - as well as the rights of their founders, employees and contractors. In the computer industry, Stikeman Elliott has acted on behalf of OEMs, VARs, system integrators, retailers, software developers and users. We also have attended to the full range of needs of clients specializing in the public distribution of data encryption and decryption hardware, software and firmware intended for commercial transmission of signals. Finally, international clients also rely on our global perspective and expertise in such areas as trans-border data flow to assist them with technology transfers;
  
  

• Intellectual property on the Internet

  Stikeman Elliott has represented clients with respect to a variety of Internet matters, including a public offering for a major Internet provider, drafting online agreements, data protection, potential liability for copyright infringement and the regulatory environment applicable to the Internet. Among the Internet regulatory issues in respect of which we have given advice are the protection of intellectual property rights, freedom of speech, the implications of the application of new audio-visual technologies to the Internet, gambling on the Internet, and the applicability of Canada's collective copyright regime to copyrighted works accessible on the Internet;
  
  

• Trade secrets and confidential information

  Stikeman Elliott regularly advises clients on how to protect trade secrets and confidential information in a variety of situations, including with respect to contracting out of services, departing employees and joint ventures, and also acts on behalf of clients in trade secrets litigation;
  
  

• Entertainment and cultural industries

  Stikeman Elliott has worked with a variety of clients in such diverse entertainment and cultural areas as endorsements, print, music and audiovisual publishing and performance, telecommunications, and multimedia productions. Among other matters, Stikeman Elliott has acted for an internationally renowned photographer with respect to the sale of archival materials to the National Archives of Canada. We have also acted on behalf of a major Canadian entertainment facility regarding protection of its intellectual property rights, and negotiated television, video reproduction and documentary rights for a major international sporting event, namely the 1972 Canada-U.S.S.R. Summit Series. Furthermore, Stikeman Elliott represents a major Canadian publisher with regard to intellectual property rights and negotiates and structures agreements pertaining to publication via such media as CDs, CD-ROMs, print, Internet, television, video games and collectible cards; and represents the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which represents 95% of the record producers and matters in Canada; and
  
  

• Public Policy and Advocacy

  Clients frequently consult Stikeman Elliott to assist them in monitoring, understanding and influencing ongoing policy developments in a number of intellectual property areas. Stikeman Elliott is very active in negotiations concerning amendments to Canadian intellectual property legislation, in particular the Copyright Act. Drawing largely on our Ottawa office, which is the heart of Stikeman Elliott's regulatory practice, clients regularly benefit from our experience and understanding of the federal legislative and regulatory processes.

Lawyers author chapter   
Susan Hutton, Vivien Tzau and Michael Kilby have published the Canadian chapter in GCR's Intellectual Property & Antitrust 2009 publication.

Financial Post references IP Update
The Financial Post has commented on the Ontario Superior Court's recent decision in Bluefoot Ventures Inc. v. Ticketmaster confirming that a trade-mark licensee owes no fiduciary duties to a trade-mark licensor. The story references Stikeman Elliott's IP Update summarizing the case.

IP counsel in protection of wine brands
Bruno Barrette, head of the Intellectual Property group in Montréal, represents Italian Formula 1 champion, Jarno Trulli, in the protection of his brands of wine sold in Canada and in the United States.