Ashley Moniz is the Managing Editor of the IPilogue and the Assistant Director of IP Osgoode.

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On October 15, 2008, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, IP Osgoode was officially launched. Known as Osgoode Hall Law School’s Intellectual Property Law and Technology Program, Prof. Pina D’Agostino set out to create a program that would lead IP law discourse, foster a vibrant community whose members are welcome to share broad perspectives, and diversify the IP innovation ecosystem. Now, 13 years later, IP Osgoode and the IP Innovation Clinic are still forging new paths and relationships in the IP community.

Here are a few noteworthy accomplishments from the past year:

IP Osgoode

• Runners-Up at the Oxford IP Moot: in March 2021, for the first time. Under Prof. D’Agostino and Prof. David Vaver’s academic supervision and expert coaching from lawyers at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP and Deeth Williams Wall LLP, our team placed second after an incredible showing and very close competition, winning the Kirkland & Ellis Runner-Up Prize for Oral Proceedings in the process.
• Leading Legal Disruption Published: in May 2021, . The book, titled Leading Legal Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and a Toolkit for Lawyers and the Law, was co-edited by Dr. Aviv Gaon of IDC Herzliya and Carole Piovesan of INQ Law.
• Two Bracing for Impact Webinars: IP Osgoode collaborated with the Harry Radzyner Law School at the IDC Herzliya and Microsoft Canada to present two new webinars in our Bracing for Impact Event Series: “” in and “” in , the latter being also in collaboration with Alectra’s GRE&T Centre. The webinars featured speakers from around the world and drew in almost 250 spectators between them.
• First Virtual Trademark Hearing: thanks to the Honourable Justice Michael Manson of the Federal Court of Canada, over 70 Osgoode students and faculty members virtually attended the .
• IPilogue’s Return to Daily Publishing: under a new structure, the has returned to publishing daily blog articles written by our dedicated team of IPilogue Writers. Almost 270 articles have been published over the past year alone, more than 120 more than the previous year. We continue to receive and publish guest submissions from students, academics, lawyers, and members of our as well.

IP Innovation Clinic

• IP Innovation ChatBot Launched: The IP Innovation Clinic officially launched its through a . Developed with assistance and support from Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, CIPO, and ISED Canada, the AI-backed ChatBot provides accurate and reliable IP law information for free on our website. Thanks to further funding from ISED through the National IP Strategy, we look forward to continuing to expand the breadth of the ChatBot’s impact and better reach and assist members of underrepresented communities in the IP Innovation ecosystem.
• Mitacs-funded Business Strategy Internships: in March 2021, . The IP Innovation Clinic placed 3 Clinic Fellows with businesses pivoting their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prof. D’Agostino was also featured in the marking the official launch of the program.
• Clinic Clients Secured Millions in Funding: two IP Innovation Clinic clients leveraged IP information from our Clinic Fellows to massive expansions of their business. to develop their drone technology and for their sustainable clothing brand.
• First LPP Candidate: during the Winter 2021 Term, under the supervision of IP Osgoode alumnus Reshika Dhir of Bereskin & Parr LLP, the IP Innovation Clinic . We look forward to welcoming two new LPP candidates in Winter 2022.
• The IP Lunch Club Continues: for the second year in a row, and in collaboration with the City of Barrie Sandbox Centre, Prof. D’Agostino’s Directed Reading: IP Innovation Program students presented , educating local entrepreneurs and innovators about registering and commercializing IP rights. Many attendees from these webinars go on to engage the IP Innovation Clinic for IP and commercialization assistance.

As always, we are grateful to all of the students, faculty, partners, and our Advisory Board for making this past year as great a success as it was. None of the above accomplishments would have happened if not for their passion, dedication, and hard work. As we welcome new students and continue to seek out more involvement, we look forward to another wonderful year and welcome new students and partnerships who can help us grow to even greater heights.

The post Happy 13th Birthday IP Osgoode! appeared first on IPOsgoode.

Photo Credit: Ashley Moniz

Ali Mesbahian is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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On June 28, 2021, IP Osgoode hosted a panel discussion in their Bracing for Impact Webinar Series titled AI’s Dirty Footprint. Organized in collaboration with the Harry Radzyner Law School at IDC Herzliya in Israel, Microsoft Canada, and Alectra's GRE&T Centre, the central question of this webinar was: in what way can we use artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure that the negative impacts of its energy consumption do not exceed its beneficial effects for environmental sustainability?

IP Osgoode’s own Professor Giuseppina (Pina) D’Agostino opened the panel by setting the stage for the discussion and introducing the speakers.Ěý

In his opening remarks, Dr. Amir Asif, Vice President of Research and Innovation at żě˛ĄĘÓƵ, noted that AI remains a “key strategic area” for research at York. Emphasizing the need for an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Asif also stated that exploring AI’s ethical and legal implications will require collaboration between researchers in the AI community, social sciences, and the humanities.

Indeed, “collaboration” was one common thread among all the speakers. In his first formal address since he took office, the Hon. David Piccini—Ontario Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks—turned not only to universities for ideas in using AI to improve the climate situation, but also to youth as part of the government’s broader environmental policy plan. The youth, he noted, must be “unapologetically engaged”. Given the , the Minister’s words are welcome if they signal any change.

The panel then proceeded to a discussion moderated by Dr. Aviv Gaon, professor at IDC Herzliya. In his introduction, Gaon brought attention to that outlines 17 internationally-agreed-upon sustainable development goals for 2030, spread across 169 targets. With respect to the environment, the study shows that AI’s potential to enable the environmental targets of these 17 goals outweighs its inhibitory effects.

The first panelist was Andrea Roszell, Director of Energy, Sustainability and Infrastructure at Guidehouse. Her discussion was centred on AI’s capabilities to increase efficiency in the energy and utility sector. In particular, she pointed to the “energy cloud”, a concept developed at Guidehouse that moves away from a “one-way flow” of power from energy centers to consumers, to a more networked, interconnected “multi-flow” dynamic. This requires an infrastructure—a neural grid—that utilizes artificial intelligence in technology, such as sensors software and monitoring systems, to create large “data sets” for utilities to access. Despite requiring increased energy consumption, Roszell stated that these data sets are a net benefit to the environment due to the new efficiency gained in management of greenhouse gases and predictive maintenance models that ultimately lead to a more sustainable and reliant energy infrastructure.

The second panelist was Dr. Audrey Lee, Senior Director of Energy Strategy at Microsoft. She started by pointing to Among other goals, Dr. Lee highlighted Microsoft’s plan to offset all of its electricity usage with renewable energy by 2025 and to be carbon negative by 2050. Lee noted, however, that the first step in achieving any such goal is to establish a proficient “measurement infrastructure” that can enable us to quantify our environmental footprint with sufficient precision—for example, data analytics that detail how and to what extent a particular utility uses electricity at each hour.

The panel then continued to its third speaker, Kapil Singhal, Co-Founder & CEO of Vyntelligence. At the very outset of his discussion, he too emphasized the need for collaboration. In particular, Singhal noted how Vyntelligence has made possible a new form collaboration between artificial intelligence and human brain power. Utilizing short videos of workflow in the field, artificial intelligence can augment workers’ awareness of a given project by revealing further areas of risk and benefit. This, when combined with human cognitive and decision-making power (which Singhal noted far exceeds what AI can learn), will yield more efficient outcomes. One such outcome is enhancing the infrastructure that allows for remote work (the importance of which is vividly felt in times of COVID-19), reducing thereby the carbon footprint of work-related travel.Ěý

Finally, the panel featured Neetika Sathe, Vice President of the GRE&T Centre at Alectra Inc. First, she noted that as more and more people gain access to the internet, global energy consumption is bound to increase. Thus, she emphasized the need for international collaboration beyond local efforts. She further mentioned that about half of the energy used at datacentres is used to cool their servers, which brings attention to the need for more efficient infrastructures.

In closing, it is important to address that, as the panelists mentioned, data centres account for only 1-2% of global energy consumption. However, as I mentioned in , AI’s “dirty footprint” is not confined to the energy it consumes, but extends to its ability to offer services for resource extraction which, for example, is enabled by the connection and collaboration between the tech and fossil fuel industries. Any meaningful policy directed at reducing AI’s negative environmental impacts must also account for this broader perspective.

A link to watch a recording of the event can be found on IP Osgoode's page.

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