Intellectual Property & E-commerce

Commercial transactions involving technology and the Internet constitute a significant part of our practice at Heydary Hamilton PC. Our technology practice centers around the following areas:

E-Commerce

We regularly help companies in all industries face the legal challenges of doing business online. From technology companies to the banking and insurance industries, we assist clients with issues relating to e-transactions, privacy, security, e-regulatory compliance, domain names & trade-marks, copyright, online advertising, cross-border transactions and jurisdictional matters.

Our strength is our in-depth knowledge of all legal aspects of e-commerce, which is due to the fact that we allocate considerable resources to ensure that our lawyers are up to speed in all aspects of this constantly changing area of law.

ˆ top

E-Regulatory Compliance

A major challenge in having an online presence for any company is compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, which often times are quite complicated. There are many laws and regulations at all levels of government and even at the international level that affect a company's web site or e-transactions.

Apart from advice on individual matters, we can help you by conducting an audit of your company's web site. Such an audit would include a comprehensive examination of your web site to determine compliance with existing relevant laws and regulations. It would also provide you with a detailed report as to our findings accompanied with suggestions on addressing deficiencies.

ˆ top

Software-Related Transactions

Whether you develop software, license it, or use it, we can assist you in drafting agreements that protect your intellectual property rights and ensure your business objectives are met. We have substantial experience in negotiating and drafting such agreements and we would welcome the opportunity to apply our experience to help you with all your software-related transactions.

ˆ top

Privacy

Privacy is increasingly becoming an important issue for businesses in all sectors of the economy. Due to the central role played by information in the operation of most businesses today and the increased level of regulatory developments in this area in recent years, all businesses need to pay close attention to privacy issues. One of the ways in which we can help you in this area is by conducting a privacy audit of your business operations to ensure regulatory compliance with laws such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

ˆ top

Domain Names

Regardless of whether a business carries on business online or not, its domain names are a major part of its overall intellectual property assets. We can help ensure that this valuable asset is protected by assisting you in recovering domain names that might have been wrongfully registered by others. Our services in this area extend to both top-level generic names such as .com, .org, .biz or .net or country level domain names such as .ca. On a limited basis, we will consider taking on domain name disputes on a pro bono basis for clients who are accredited educational institutions or registered charitable organizations.

ˆ top

Intellectual Property

We do not view intellectual property rights in isolation from other aspects of a client's business. For most businesses today, intellectual property rights are a major asset that needs to be taken into account when making any significant business decision. Based on this philosophy, our approach with intellectual property matters is, first and foremost, to advise our clients as to the best overall strategy to maximize or protect their intellectual property rights.

Once an overall strategy is in place, we proceed in one of two ways: with certain matters such as copyright, trade-marks or trade secrets, we rely on our own lawyers to assist our clients. With other more specialized areas, such as patents, we identify the exact work that a client needs completed and help the client retain an intellectual property lawyer who specializes in that area and who also has an educational or work background in the client's industry. For example, our experience shows that a client in the software industry who needs to file a business process patent is best served by a patent lawyer who is specifically familiar with business process patents and who also has a graduate degree in computer sciences.

Trade-marks: a trade-mark is a word, symbol or design, or a combination of these, used to distinguish the goods or services of one person or organization from those of others. We can help you protect your trade-mark rights by registering your business name, logo, product brand or slogan as a trade-mark.  We are registered Canadian trade-mark agents and we are also authorized to register trade-marks in the United States. For our current rates for registering a trade-mark or a copyright, visit our fees promotion page for technology matters.

Further information is also available about Trade-marks.

Copyright: copyright applies to all original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. These include books, other writings, music, sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, plays, television and radio programs, computer programs and communication signals. You acquire copyright protection automatically when you create an original work or other subject-matter. Our lawyers can assist you in both registering copyrights (Canada & U.S.) and also litigating copyright disputes.

Patents: patents are government grants that give inventors exclusive rights to their inventions for a limited period of time. Patents are granted for products or processes that are new, workable and ingenious (novel, useful and inventive).

 

ˆ top

 

For details on our current promotions on services provided by lawyers in our Toronto office, please visit our fees page or contact Javad Heydary if you have any questions.