• We acted for the Canadian distributor of Asian-jurisdiction television programs to halt unlawful copying and distribution of the licensed programs in British Columbia.
• We acted for clients to cause the cessation of unlawful trademark and copyright infringement by third parties, including the cessation of bidding on client trademarks with search engines offering top placement to the highest bidder.
• From time to time, a client may find itself collaborating with a potential or actual competitor. How do you address a client’s concerns to ensure that it can offer services and yet not be inhibited in other areas of its business by competing with the competitor? Handling the receipt of confidential information, assigning deliverables and the IP embodied in the deliverables to the competitor, and yet ensuring our client’s residual rights to continue its business competing in the market after the collaboration was done, was nuanced. We negotiated the needed contract clauses enabling our client to do its deal—the competitor was satisfied, and our client got the elbow room needed to continue growing its products and business.
• We were engaged by a prominent innovator in the field who had engaged other law firms to negotiate with an ex-employer, for the transfer of software ownership and data assets after the cessation of employment in a sensitive situation. The client initially approached us to canvass a litigation, trial track. We reviewed the extensive background documents, including a form of agreement prepared by the ex-employer, advised the client that litigation was unnecessary and would be counter-productive to the objective, and that we were confident we could negotiate and close a deal with the ex-employer without the need for litigation. It took some time, but we did it. Our client was very pleased and unnecessary litigation was avoided.
• Our client owned one of the most sought after domains in the world. We helped negotiate and prepare the agreements for an anticipated eight-figure sale.