Canada Post claims to own Canadian postal codes and the phrase “postal code” in English and French

Canada Post, the Crown corporation responsible for carrying the nation’s mail, became the brunt of jokes this week for the copyright claims it has made--not only on Canada's postal codes, but also the phrases "postal code" in English and "code postale" in French (Canada’s two official languages).

In spring 2012, Canada Post launched a lawsuit against the Internet company Geolytica for providing a free database of Canadian postal codes on line. Geolytica runs the geocoding site GeoCoder.ca, which turns street addresses into geographic co-ordinates so they can be mapped.

Although postal and zip-code data is available for free to companies in the U.K. and the U.S.A., Canada Post charges companies between $5,500 and $50,500 a year for access to its copyrighted postal-code database.  Canada Post’s original lawsuit against Geolytica is based on the claim that Canada Post loses major revenue when people distribute its postal-code information for free.  Geolytica’s counterclaim is that it never stole Canada Post's information, but rather since 2004 has been compiling its own database of postal codes by crowdsourcing the information from on-line users who provided it voluntarily. 

The latest in the year-old lawsuit is that on March 9 Canada Post filed an updated statement of claim alleging that Geolytica and other sites owned by Ervin Ruci violate Canada Post’s trademark on the terms "postal code" and "code postale."

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic is representing Geolytica pro-bono, because for one reason the high cost of using Canada Post’s data also limits innovation opportunities for developers who want to incorporate the data into geo-location software products.  A court date has not been set yet.

Meanwhile Treasury Board Secretariat president Tony Clement continues to tout the Canadian federal government’s “open data initiative,” which aims to make government-controlled information from hundreds of sources (including safety recalls, food-inspection reports, business licences, and Statistics Canada research) accessible to Canadians.

QMI Agency reports:  "’Other than filling my mailbox with junk mail, misusing the legal system to pursue absurd claims appears to be the way those overpaid pencil sharpeners see as the way out of the woods,’" Ruci wrote on his blog, referring to a recent Conference Board of Canada report predicting Canada Post's annual operating loss will reach $1 billion by 2020."

The Ottawa Citizen writes:  “Ervin Ruci, founder of Geocoder.ca, said the hassle Canada Post has presented over the collection and use of postal code data should act as a warning to any business trying to using government-created data for financial gain. He pointed to several other businesses, including Canadian Tire and Walmart, that ask for postal code information in order to present customers with a local store’s sale flyer.”

A Citizen reader comments in a letter to the editor:

“Canada Post has forgotten that they exist for the benefit of Canadians not for the benefit of the Canada Post corporation. Their recent desire to keep the words ‘postal code’ for themselves is ridiculous.

“It is equivalent to the City of Ottawa saying that street addresses belong to them so that we would not be able to say ‘24 Sussex Drive’ without permission.

“Instead, we'd have to say something like ‘the big house on the river where [Canadian Prime Minister] Stephen Harper lives.’”

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Canada+Post+claims+rights+term+postal+code/8290173/story.html

http://www.canadaone.com/ezine/briefs.html?StoryID=13Apr24_1

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/04/24/canada-post-claims-to-own-the-phrase-postal-code

http://www.data.gc.ca

http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1

http://geocoder.ca/

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Canada+Post+claim+ownership+ridiculous/8297590/story.html

Bill C-311 will expand Canadian wine market--and packaging opportunities for printers--even further

Several of my recent columns for PrintAction have discussed the growing markets for wine, beer, and alcoholic spirits in Canada and the innovations in packaging that are both helping to drive them and creating new opportunities for printers. This week another development signals further commercial growth for wine:  Bill C-311--a private member's bill ending the restrictions on carrying wine across provincial borders for personal consumption--passed third reading in Canada’s House of Commons with unanimous support.  Now it heads to the Senate, where it is also expected to pass.

The bill was introduced last October by Conservative MP Dan Albas, who represents the federal riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla in the heart of British Columbia’s wine-producing territory.  "We should be trying to take down these barriers to make it as easy to sell to someone in Alberta as it is to sell to someone in China," Albas told CBC News after the bill passed Wednesday night.

Since the prohibition-era Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, it has been illegal in Canada (with a few exceptions) to carry alcohol across provincial borders.  The new bill would allow people to do so, although only for personal use, as well as allow Canadian vineyards to ship wine by post or courier to customers in other provinces.  Small wineries have long complained that the current interprovincial barriers prevent people from legally taking home a few bottles from their favourite vineyards out of province.  

Although wine can already be shipped between provinces for commercial sale, the shipments are only permitted through the provincial regulatory and marketing bodies for alcohol, such as British Columbia’s Liquor Control and Licensing Branch (LCLB) and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).  Thus many smaller vineyards say they are left out of the process because they don't produce enough product to interest the provincial regulators.

While passage of Bill C311 will help alleviate small wineries’ concerns, it won’t eliminate all provincial restrictions.  For example, regulators in British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and the Yukon still limit the amount of alcohol their residents can bring from other provinces for personal use to:  one case of wine, four bottles of spirits, and a combined total of six dozen beer, cider and coolers.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/06/07/bc-interprovincial-wine-law.html

http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/canadian_wine_soon_to_flow_freely_between_provinces/248ee5b1

https://www.box.net/s/155447311a71831eea34

Canadian government upholds Internet's democratic roots

Today the Canadian government has championed the founding concept of the Internet as a tool for universal access to information by threatening to reverse a controversial ruling by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission).  This recent ruling denied independent Internet service providers the right to continue offering flat-fee-for-unlimited-use plans to consumers.  Prior to today's development, Industry Minister Tony Clement had received tens of thousands of emails requesting that the CRTC's decision be struck down. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/932571--ottawa-threatens-to-reverse-crtc-decision-on-internet-billing