Canada Case Law

McCain Foods Limited v. J.R. Simplot Company

Court

Federal Court of Appeal

The Federal Court did not commit a palpable and overriding error in its factual appreciation of expert evidence and common general knowledge; 'high electric field' in Claim 1 is properly understood by a skilled person at the date of publication to refer to electric fields in the range of about 2 to 200 V/cm, which excludes Simplot's pulsed electric field systems, and the appeal is dismissed.

Source excerpt

• Claim construction
• Infringement
• Invalidity
• Utility
• Person skilled in the art
• Standard of review

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Fazio v. Altus Business Consultants Limited

Court

Federal Court

The Federal Court dismissed Marie Pia Fazio’s appeal from an Associate Judge’s Rule 74 order removing her claim from the court file for lack of jurisdiction and no viable cause of action.

• Rule 74 dismissal/removal of claim
• Ito jurisdiction test
• Ownership presumption s.13(3) copyright act
• Federal vs provincial jurisdiction
• Pleading sufficiency for ip claims
• Proportionality in case management

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Deeproot Green Infrastructure, LLC v. Greenblue Urban North America Inc.

Court

Federal Court

The Federal Court disallowed GreenBlue’s overhead deductions on remittal and awarded DeepRoot an accounting of profits, plus prejudgment interest and costs.

• Accounting of profits
• Causation for overhead deductions
• Reasonable royalty
• Pre-judgment interest
• Costs assessment
• Accounting-of-profits

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Proslide Technology Inc. v. Whitewater West Industries, LTD.

Court

Federal Court of Appeal

The Court allowed the appeal in part, concluding the Federal Court erred in finding asserted claims invalid for overbreadth by privileging pre-filing inventor testimony and expert perspectives over the patent specification; the specification controls the assessment of what the inventor contemplated at the filing date. The Court affirmed the Federal Court's conclusion that WhiteWater did not infringe because making/using a claimed physical invention for purposes of s.42 requires physical manufacture/assembly/use in Canada (conceptual designs and advanced design activities in Canada are insuffi…

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• Overbreadth (overclaiming)
• Patent infringement territoriality
• Utility and sound prediction
• Claim construction
• Remedies and costs

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6035558 Canada Inc. v. Unilin Beheer B.V.

Court

Federal Court of Appeal

The Court dismissed the appeal with costs because the Federal Court applied the correct standard of review (intervention only for errors of law or palpable and overriding error), there was no palpable and overriding error in the Associate Judge's decision to grant leave to amend, the amended claim pleaded sufficient material facts to justify impleading the individual defendants, and the reasons were adequate given the record and applicable law.

Source excerpt

• Amendment of pleadings
• Leave to amend
• Piercing the corporate veil
• Standard of review
• Case management
• Particularity of pleadings

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Advanced Powders & Coatings Inc. v. Tekna Plasma Systems Inc.

Court

Federal Court of Appeal

The Federal Court did not err: the claims were ambiguous because a skilled reader could not reliably distinguish the claimed 'depletion layer' from the native oxide layer (502 Patent) nor determine the existence or parameters of a depletion layer (236 Patent); therefore the claims failed the distinctness/notice requirement and are invalid for ambiguity, and the appeal is dismissed.

Source excerpt

• Claim construction
• Ambiguity (patent indefiniteness)
• Invalidity
• Infringement
• Insufficiency
• Costs

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Impulse Downhole Solutions Ltd. v. Challenger Downhole Tools Inc.

Court

Federal Court

The Federal Court dismissed an appeal from a case management order refusing discovery. It held the requested drawings were not shown to be relevant to patent damages issues.

• Discovery relevance
• Damages (lost profits)
• Accounting of profits
• Convoyed products
• Patent-law
• Civil-procedure

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Adeia Guides Inc. v. Videotron Ltd.

Court

Federal Court

The Federal Court considered patent validity, claim construction, infringement, and remedies in a dispute between Adeia Guides Inc. and Videotron Ltd. over interactive television technologies.

• Infringement
• Validity
• Claim construction
• Anticipation
• Obviousness
• Double patenting

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Dusome v. Canada (Attorney General)

Court

Federal Court

The Federal Court allowed judicial review of a patent refusal for a poker game method, finding errors in claim construction and subject-matter analysis.

• Patentable subject-matter
• Purposive construction
• Definition of "invention" (s.2 patent act)
• Subsection 27(8) patent act (scientific principle/theorem exclusion)
• Computer-implemented inventions
• Business method patents

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NCS Multistage Inc. v. Kobold Corporation

Court

Federal Court of Appeal

The Federal Court erred in law by misapplying claim differentiation and treating dependent-claim limitations (the sealed embodiment) as excluded from the broader claims; properly construed, claims 6, 11, 12 and 16 of the 571 patent encompass both the sealed and gap embodiments; because claim construction was legally incorrect the question of obviousness double patenting in view of claim 17 of the 830 patent must be remitted to the Federal Court for re-determination; the trial judge's lump sum costs award of $1,800,000 was procedurally and evidentially flawed and is set aside and replaced with…

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• Claim construction
• Obviousness double patenting
• Infringement
• Lump sum costs
• Procedural fairness

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