The Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") has dismissed an application to appeal the federal court of appeal decision in French v. Royal Canadian Legion (Dominion Command) ("French"). At issue was the sale of poppy patterned puppy toys under allegedly false authorship information.
With this dismissal of leave to appeal, the SCC has declined to weigh in on the Federal Court of Appeal's interpretation of paragraph 64(2)(d) of the Copyright Act. Consequently Canadians can be content that for the moment the issue of moral rights as applied to designs appears to be settled as stated by the Federal Court of Appeal:
[T]he defence to infringement of moral rights provided for in subsection 64(2), including paragraph 64(2)(d), is intended to cover any infringement of the author's moral rights. For there to be an infringement of moral rights, it must be in connection with the copyright; if there is no act in connection with copyright, there is no infringement of moral rights.
Our previous reporting on the Federal Court of Appeal decision can be found here.
The SCC's dismissal of the application for leave to appeal can be found here.
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