Articles 2020

In SOTA Dental Studio Inc. v. Andrid Group Ltd., 2022 ONSC 2254 (“SOTA”), the Divisional Court unanimously rejected the owner’s application for judicial review of an adjudicator’s order requiring payment of outstanding invoices. The application was rejected because the applicant had neither paid the order under review, nor moved for a stay. SOTA is the first reported decision from a judicial review of an adjudicator’s decision under Ontario’s Construction Act.

Digital identification (“Digital ID”) is evolving the way we verify ourselves in the online world. Following other jurisdictions, Canada is currently adopting its own Digital ID strategy, with provinces like Ontario working on policies in the space. However, Digital ID may be accompanied by novel challenges that legal professionals will have to address in future practice. This article serves as a primer for legal professionals to learn more about Ontario’s Digital ID initiative.

There is still very little recognition among many lawyers of the differences between internet defamation proceedings and offline defamation proceedings, and even less recognition of the practical consequences of the two forms of defamation proceedings. The next article will summarize the major differences between online and offline libel litigation and their consequences. Here, I will simply sketch some of the important characteristics of the internet.

In 2016, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice recognized, for the first time, the tort of public disclosure of private facts in response to the proliferation of “revenge porn” disseminated online. Since then, subsequent courts across the country have provided further guidance on the nuances of the tort and what types of privacy infringements it is intended to redress.

Dubbed as the Instagram “it” bag in 2016, Cult Gaia’s “Ark” bag design was recently refused trademark registration in the United States following the brand’s five-year battle to obtain registration for the design of its bag.