MailChannels Fights Spam by Delay

MailChannels Corporation, a Vancouver-based developer of next generation email infrastructure protection solutions, has developed a software product called Traffic Control in an effort to fight spam (unsolicited email). Spammers rely on sending large volumes of email in order to realize profits. The more emails sent in a shorter period of time, the greater the chance that an email recipient will open the unsolicited message and buy the advertised product. Traffic Control discourages spammers by allowing email administrators to delay an email server’s response time in accepting incoming messages, from several seconds to a couple of minutes. Most spammers, unlike legitimate email senders, cannot afford to wait during this delay and therefore will likely move on. MailChannels touts a growing customer base for Traffic Control, including government institutions and universities. Experts, however, argue that the more widely used Traffic Control is, the less effective it will become since spammers will eventually be forced to wait on, and send spam to, a majority of servers using such technology.

This entry first appeared in the April 19, 2007 edition of lawsof.com. For the status of the case, click here.

Copyright Versus Grey Marketing

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada heard oral arguments in the case of Euro Excellence Inc. v Kraft Canada Inc. in which Kraft Canada Inc. ("Kraft"), a large food and beverage company and exclusive Canadian distributor for the TOBLERONE brand of chocolate bars, sought to stop Euro Excellence ("Euro"), a Quebec-based importer and distributor of fine confectionery, from selling its foreign-sourced TOBLERONE bars in Canada. While such a practice, also referred to as "grey marketing", is not illegal per se, it ignores the use of authorized distribution channels and is therefore carried out at the expense of local rights-holders, presenting health and safety risks, as well as risks to their reputation.

Generally, trade-mark law has been used in attempts to block parallel importing in Canada. However, there are difficulties in relying on trade-mark law for such purposes in Canada. In the current case, Kraft argued that since it controlled the Canadian copyright to the logos appearing on the TOBLERONE packaging, Euro had committed secondary infringement under Section 27(2) of the Copyright Act (Canada). Kraft's arguments were successful both at the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. Consequently, the Supreme Court of Canada must now decide whether Canadian copyright law can, or should, be used as a tool against the practice of parallel importing.

This entry first appeared in the April 5, 2007 edition of lawsof.com. For the status of the case, click here.