The Toronto Intellectual Property Group is pleased to present Ron Dimock and Don MacOdrum with the 2015 version of their renowned “Ron & Don Show”, featuring the Top 10 IP Cases from the past year. It will be an entertaining review and insightful analysis of ten IP cases in the past year that are really worth noting.
Ronald E. Dimock, Dimock Stratton LLP
Ron is one of Canada’s leading intellectual property litigators, mediators and arbitrators. Over the course of a practice spanning almost four decades, Ron has appeared as counsel in more than fifty patent, trademark and copyright trials in the Federal Court and more than thirty appeals in the Supreme Court of Canada, Federal Court of Appeal and Ontario Court of Appeal. He has been in more patent trials than any other practitioner in Canada. Ron was counsel in the Supreme Court of Canada on some of the leading cases in IP law: Whirlpool v. Camco (patents), Lego v. Mega Bloks (trademarks) and Robertson v. Thomson (copyright).
Ron is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. He is certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in both Civil Litigation and Intellectual Property (Patent, Trademark, and Copyright) Law. Ron is identified by Lexpert as one of the “Most Frequently Recommended” IP litigators in Canada and has been named as the leading patent lawyer in Canada in the Managing Intellectual Property Guide to the World’s Leading Patent Law Experts. He has also been described as the “guru of IP law in Canada” in Chambers & Partners Global Guide and as “one of the finest litigators” in Canada by Who’s Who in Patents. Having “some of the best trial skills in the market”, according to WTR 1000, Ron is rated AV®Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell. For 2013, he was named Lawyer of the Year for IP in Toronto by Best Lawyers and the Patent Litigator of the Year by Benchmark Canada.IAM 1000 Patents calls Ron “chairman of the board for Canadian patent lawyers”.
Ron also teaches a graduate level course in Intellectual Property to LL.M. students at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. He has taught patents to law students at Queen’s University and has taught copyright to students enrolled in the Advanced Course on Copyright sponsored by McGill University and the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada. He is on the International Trademark Association’s Panel of Neutrals for Canada, a Mediator on file with IPIC and a member of IP Neutrals of Canada. Ron is a panel member of JAMS, the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide, and has an office in the JAMS Resolution Centre in Toronto. Ron is also Editor of Intellectual Property Disputes: Resolutions and Remedies updated quarterly by Thomson Carswell Publishing.
Prior to his call to the Ontario Bar in 1976, Ron obtained his LL.B. in 1974 and B.Sc. in Mathematics and Engineering (with Honours) in 1971 from Queen’s University. He was Big Brother of the Year for Toronto in 1979 and served as a Director on the Big Brothers Board for several years. Ron is now on the Board of Directors of Parteq and a member of the Major Gift Cabinet of the United Way of Toronto.
Donald H. MacOdrum, Bereskin & Parr LLP
Don’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation, which he has practiced for 49 years. Don is certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in Civil Litigation and as a Specialist in Intellectual Property Law (Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright).
Don has represented clients ranging from individuals to major international corporations in a wide variety of disputes relating to intellectual property, including patent infringement and validity actions, proceedings under the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations, and numerous copyright and trademark cases, in a wide variety of fields including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare products; electronics and electrical systems; oil and gas exploration; farm equipment; floor covering, steel making, plastic products, tires; footwear; ships and sub-marine activities; information technology and computer software; household products; personal care products; food products; cable systems; television series; musical works, music publishers and recording artists.
Don has appeared as counsel in the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada, and at all levels of courts in Ontario, including the Ontario Superior Court and the Ontario Court of Appeal. Don has also acted as a mediator in disputes in the Federal Court and Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Don is involved with several IP organizations. He was a member of the Programme Committee of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) for six years and was President of the Canadian Group of AIPPI from 2004 to 2006. In 2012, he received an Award of Merit from AIPPI.
Don is the author of Fox on the Canadian Law of Patents, 5th Edition, which publisher Carswell describes as “the preeminent reference work for patent lawyers and patent agents in Canada”.
He also has authored numerous articles and presentations on patent and trademark law and other IP topics, and on various litigation topics, particularly IP litigation. For 15 years he taught Patent Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor for which he prepared and updated annually the case book Patent Law in Canada: Cases and Materials.
Don is consistently recommended as a leading IP lawyer in Canada in publications such as The 2015 Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada, The Legal 500 Canada 2015, Best Lawyers in Canada 2015, Managing Intellectual Property’s 2014 IP Stars Handbook: Patent, The 2014 Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, The International Who’s Who of Patent Lawyers 2014.
