Intellectual property lawyer in Toronto
Stan Benda is a Toronto based IP & Licensing Lawyer who provides a range of cost effective intellectual property legal services to support companies and individuals involved in the development, distribution and use of intellectual property assets.
Legal Services include:
If you have intellectual property (IP) assets that need protecting or IPs that needs to be licensed – I can help! Phone me at (416) 366-3538 or use the contact form on this page.
Why choose Stan Benda for your Intellectual Property protection needs?
I spent almost 30 years in the Justice Department dealing with all manner and level of contracts and negotiations from privatizing airports to hotels in Banff to genetic technologies. Since 1992 I focused on agricultural biotechnology and advanced technologies both in a domestic, international and UN arenas.
Why hire Stan Benda over a large IP Firm?
Large firms retire — not hire — lawyers of my vintage. Moreover, my years of experience were with governments, universities and international institutions—-parties that I cannot bring to a firm as my “book” or client base.
Hiring Stan Benda is more affordable
The fact I am not at a large firm allows me to charge less. At a large firm my hourly rate would be over $800/hr. My actual rate is $300. My overhead is much lower.
Sleep better at night knowing Stan Benda will protect your Intellectual Property
Your license or associated technology transfer contracts (material transfer agreements, collaborations, options, confidentiality agreements) will be written in plain language. All the concepts will be explained so you can manage the contract. Indeed, if you prefer, the document can come with a glossary parallel to the contractual narrative. The contracts will reflect the latest law, and use a writing architecture that keeps the key concepts clear and obvious years down the road. I also pride myself on answering phone calls promptly, either when they are made, or shortly thereafter on the same day.
The philosophy I teach and try to follow is apply the law to the deal, not the deal to the law. So creativity and risk management are key.
In addition I am aware of the best intellectual property barristers/litigators in the city and can refer you to them.
What is Intellectual Property Protection?
Ideas are “a dime a dozen” or valueless.
A harsh statement but true in economic terms.
Ideas have value only after they are transmuted into:
- technology (physical or biological)
- work (music/book)
- symbol
- decoration
If these transmutations fit certain prescribed and rigid legal categories, then the law can protect the result. This area of the law is intellectual property.
Nevertheless ideas/concepts/hunches can be protected – but not commercially exploited – as a trade secret or confidential information. Ideas transmuted into a technology that does not satisfy the requirements of any intellectual property may also be protected as a trade secret.
Intellectual property (commonly called “IP”)
There are three sorts of property in law:
- Real property more commonly called real estate;
- Personal property, known in law as chattels (e.g. your car, furniture)
- Intellectual Property (e.g. patents)
The premise of the law of IP is that Authors/Creators/Inventors have a right to the fruits of their labours, and society has a right to the circulation of their works, inventions, creations. This also means that infringements seen as profound evils because of a huge potential cost of creating and a huge potential gain by copying.
Unlike real estate and chattels, intellectual property is incorporeal: it is not physical/tangible. In almost all instances, IP is a right created by the law. Which means failure to comply with the law, be it qualifying conditions, ongoing conditions or acting contrary to those conditions can preclude or prejudice your IP rights.
Being incorporeal also means unlike other property, IP is infinitely divisible. That divisibility is how money is made: those divisions of intellectual property are implemented through licenses – software licenses are what most people are familiar with, or least familiar enough to press “I agree” to the terms of the license.
Simply put a license gives a person permission to use another person’s property. For a fee Microsoft gives millions of people the right to use (not own) the copyrighted work better known as “Word” or “Business Suite”. Microsoft remains the owner/licensor. The consumer is given a permission – a license – to use the intellectual property as a licensee (or user). When you buy a Harry Potter book, you own the book, not the words. You cannot photocopy and sell copies of that book. The intellectual property is owned by Ms. Rowlins.
With digitization the incorporeal nature of intellectual property is both a blessing and handicap. Someone can circulate around the world in seconds a copyrighted book, music or photograph. The illegal use of intellectual property is called infringement. That is why owners and governments are so diligent in fighting infringement: it is a form of theft.
Categories of Intellectual Property
Intellectual property comes in 6 classes or types that are creations of the law and these are all areas we can help you with.
The famous three are:
The less famous three are:
- Plant Breeders Rights
- Industrial Design
- Integrated Circuit Topography
One category which in Canada is not created by statutory law, and is practically but inaccurately grouped into intellectual property is trade secrets/confidential information. In the US a number of States of a statutory definition of trade secrets.
These IP categories are distinct, mutually exclusive and idiosyncratic to every jurisdiction (generally speaking every nation).
- What is patentable in Canada may not be patentable in the US or EU and vice versa.
- What can be trade-marked in the US may not be capable of being registered in Canada.
- Time lines are different: patents exist for 20 years while copyright exists for the life of the creator and then for 50 years past the author’s death; trade-marks are registered for 15 years, but can be indefinitely renewed.
Moreover the regulatory process for each type of IP is different:
- IP that comes into existence only with formal registration, e.g. patents; plant breeders rights)
- IP that comes into existence at creation and not with registration (e.g. music copyright)
- IP that can be both (trade mark use without registration, and registered and use).
Increasing the complexity is the fact that Canada subscribes to certain international intellectual property treaties and not to others.
Consequently this area of law is exceedingly particular and fussy. This is something that drives the public crazy: the clash of the public’s belief and assumption about the law with regulatory complexity and strictures exactingly administered.
This is why it is essential that you hire a IP lawyer who has extensive experience with intellectual property.
