Patent Law Colloquium keynote speaker asks: Is Canada’s sovereignty at stake?

By Mark Witten

Changes in international IP law resulting from trade agreements pose a potential threat to Canada’s sovereign powers and ability to safeguard public health, said Rochelle Dreyfuss, a leading intellectual property expert and Pauline Newman Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. She gave the keynote speech at the fourth annual Patent Colloquium, hosted last fall by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law’s Centre for Innovation Law and Policy.

In a commentary in the Globe and Mail, Prof. Brenda Cossman argues that the reason there has been a reaction to Prime Minister Trudeau hiring childcare workers for his children at public expense is that many Canadians still see child care as a private, largely female domain rather than a collective responsibility ("Because it’s (only) 2015: Trudeau’s childcare still considered his wife’s job," December 3, 2015).

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) has bestowed graduate scholarships to five outstanding SJD students at the Faculty of Law researching areas of international Law.

The awards are valued at $24,000 at the SJD level, and include a period of residency at the Waterloo-based CIGI campus to exchange ideas and pursue research at the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

The Faculty of Law congratulates: Ashley Barnes, Christopher Campbell-Duruflé, Daniela Chimisso Dos Santos, Francesco Ducci and Aman Gebru on these doctoral awards.

In a commentary in the Globe and Mail, Prof. Jutta Brunnée, Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law, emphasized the importance of "Paris 2015" being where the world confronts the threat of climate change as well as the threat of terrorism ("Let Paris be the moment we confronted two global threats," November 19, 2015).