January 31 2008 - NEWS
U R SUED!
- by Aaron GrandguillotA California entrepreneur is suing the U of R for copyright infringement, claiming that the university illegally copied material from his company’s website.
Steve McNamara, owner of the online advertising agency AdCracker.com, alleges that U of R printing services stole one of his creative briefs – a form used to help design ad campaigns – and placed it online for clients to complete and submit.
“It puts my business in jeopardy … they [stole] it, then effectively competed with me,” said McNamara. “To me, it’s a matter of ethics. I think a university … should have a higher standard of ethical behaviour when it comes to intellectual property.”
McNamara’s case was filed with the Federal Court (Canada) on Jan. 14, 2008, and is still in the preliminary stages. McNamara’s attorney, Clinton Lee of Nexus Law Group in Vancouver, said that the case might be heard in fall 2008 at the very earliest.
The university would not comment on the details of the case, as it is still awaiting a report from its attorneys, the Saskatchewan firm McDougall Gauley LLP. “All I can [say] right now is that our lawyers are still talking … it’s in their hands,” said Barb Pollock, the U of R’s vice president of external affairs. “We don’t see an opportunity or a need at this time to go public, because we are still working out what exactly the process is, and how we move on.” Pollock did state, however, that the lawsuit would not reflect on the university’s students or faculty.
The case’s appearance in Canadian court comes after unsuccessful attempts by McNamara both to settle out of court and to file the suit in California – attempts during which he says the university bullied, intimidated, and often blatantly ignored him. While Pollock says that the university was first made aware of the situation in June, McNamara claims that he received a letter roughly a year ago informing him that the U of R had copied his brief, and spent weeks sending letters and faxes before Printing Services took the material offline. He claims requests to discuss compensation for its use went nowhere, “[They] completely ignored us. At that point, I filed a lawsuit in California … I really didn’t want to do that, but when they ignore you, you’ve got to do something.”
The California lawsuit was dropped, however, due to concerns as to whether that court had jurisdiction over the case. “Our client is a small businessman and for him to lose based on jurisdiction would have cost him a small fortune,” said Lee. “The merits of the US lawsuit were never decided and that’s why our client has decided to litigate in Canada, on the U of R’s home turf.”
McNamara also says that the U of R hired a high-priced international law firm, Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP, to oppose his lone attorney in California. “These guys [were] intimidating us,” said McNamara. “They have financial resources that I don’t have, and this is just not right.” Pollock could only comment that the U of R “may through our lawyers (McDougal Gauley) …have engaged the services of American legal counsel.”
McNamara has already contacted his Senator about creating legislation to protect the intellectual property of U.S. companies from foreign firms. While it will be some time before the case is heard, he says he has no intention of relenting. “I’m going to pursue this,” he said. “I am going to try to talk to every student, every donor, every member of the staff at the university and say ‘this is my story.’”
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