CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY - INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
An International Corporation had made
an appropriate application to register a Canadian trademark that was
eerily similar to the trademark our client had registered and was
currently using in Canada. Counsel of our international client
advised that if the other corporation’s trademark application was
granted it would lead to consumer confusion and a potential loss of
market share of our client’s trademark protected product.
We were
retained to investigate the availability of the other name already
in use, but not protected by a trademark, in the Canadian
marketplace. Our Investigators queried a number of Canadian on-line
retailers and discovered our client’s product commingled with the
product we were investigating. We were able to confirm that the
alternate product was deliverable to Canada from the international
on-line retailers.
The second phase of our investigation was to
physically visit retailers throughout Ontario to locate the
applicant’s marketable merchandise for sale alongside our client’s
products. We were successful in locating numerous examples in retail
locations that both products were for sale side by each. Counsel in
concert with our Investigators created in-depth affidavits complete
with appendices that contained the requisite evidence via website
screen captures and website order forms to support counsel’s
contention of a potentially confused consumer.
CASE STUDY - COMPETITIVE
INTELLIGENCE
A multi-national corporation suspected
that a competitor was intending to construct a new beverage producing
plant in Ontario. Our firm was tasked with identifying the location
of the new facility, determining the capacity and production
capabilities of the plant, the product roll-out date as well as
sourcing of the raw materials for the beverage product, thereby gaining
competitive intelligence for our client.
Our Investigators were able to glean from the competitor’s publicly available internal communiqué’s
that the new plant would be erected in a small town in southern
Ontario. The next step of our investigation was to visit the
municipal offices of the Town to examine documents filed with the
Planning and Building Departments. We were able to view the detailed
blueprints for the new facility and thereby determine the exact
location of the plant, the overall size and production capabilities
of the complex.
The Building Department was in possession of a
schedule of completion dates for the construction of the facility
effectively providing a construction end date and therefore an
approximate roll out date of the new juice product. Hiring notices
filed in the local newspaper revealed the scope of the number of
employees required.
The location of the proposed plant was in close
proximity to a freshwater river and meetings with the Ontario
Ministry of the Environment confirmed that the new plant would draw
water from the river to; assist in the manufacture of the product,
to cool production machinery and discharge approved effluent back
into the waterway. The foregoing competitive intelligence assisted
our client in preparation of the impending launch of the
competitor’s new product.
CASE STUDY - DUE DILIGENCE
An Investment Firm from the United
States, a longstanding client, received a sophisticated prospectus,
complete with a scale model from an individual who wanted USD$20
million to construct a multi-use medical development in Nevada. The
individual, purported to be a Canadian citizen from Alberta,
included in his proposal that he currently owned four large rental
apartment buildings in Alberta that were unencumbered.
The subject
also offered his hotel in Whistler, BC as additional collateral in
an attempt to secure his financing. Our investigation on this
individual began in Alberta, where we were able to learn through
land registry searches and corporation profiles that this subject
did not own any of the rental income buildings, but was a tenant of
a studio apartment in one of the buildings.
Finally, we verified
that the subject did not own a hotel in Whistler and the hotel he
purported to own had launched civil litigation against him over an
unpaid room account. Our client was pleased to learn that our
investigation thwarted a potential Advance Fee Fraud. |