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On April 14, 2022, Bill 109, the More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, received royal assent, just two weeks after it was introduced by the provincial government on March 30, 2022. Bill 109 proposed several amendments to existing legislation, including the Planning Act, the Development Charges Act, 1997, the City of Toronto Act, 2006, the New Home Construction Licensing Act, 2017 and the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act.

A new bench-bar committee has been established at the request of the Superior Court of Justice’s Regional Senior Judges Council. The Ontario Estates Bench-Bar Liaison Committee had its first meeting in January 2022. At the January meeting, the Committee discussed several topics, including Estates List model orders, tracking decisions made pursuant to recent changes to the Succession Law Reform Act, and clarification regarding scheduling and court bookings for the Toronto Estates Office.

On the heels of Mark Zuckerberg announcing the rebranding of Facebook to “Meta”, along with his plans for creating a virtual reality metaverse, Nike garnered significant media attention when it was reported that it filed seven trademark applications for use on “virtual goods”. These filings include the notable Nike “swoosh” logo and the words “Nike”, “Just Do It”, “Jordan”, and “Air Jordan”.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence on intellectual property policy is an issue that more countries around their world are turning their focus towards. Canada is no exception. In 2021, the Government of Canada launched a Consultation on Modern Copyright Framework for Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things to assess whether Canada’s existing copyright framework is keeping pace with the rapid developments in artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.

Questions we should be asking and considerations we need to keep in mind with respect to digital signing of documents for business lawyers.