Background
Michael Whitt is a partner in our Calgary office. He graduated from the University of British Columbia Law School in 1978 and was called to the Alberta Bar in 1979. Prior to that, Mr. Whitt received a B.A. from the University of Calgary. Mr. Whitt is a lawyer, Patent Agent and Trade-mark Agent.
Mr. Whitt is Co-Chair of the Calgary BLG Intellectual Property and Technology Department and heads Calgary’s informal multi-disciplinary “Technology Law Group”. Mr. Whitt also serves on several important functional committees for BLG, including as a member of the firm’s Privacy Committee, the Information Technology Steering Committee and the Excellent Knowledge Management Committee, as well as having served regionally on Regional Marketing and Associate Committees
Areas of Practice
- Mr. Whitt’s practice focuses on fulfilling the legal requirements of technology-based businesses and specifically on Intellectual property matters.
- Mr. Whitt has a solid background in corporate/commercial law, taxation as it relates to technology matters and planning, negotiating, structuring and documenting a variety of technology - driven transactions and businesses.
- Mr. Whitt routinely deals with complex information and communication technologies, particularly in healthcare, informatics and privacy, IT outsourcing and complex licensing regimes.
Professional Experience
- Attending and counselling manufacturers and vendors in conformance and compliance validation and certification testing, most recently for IT vendor and system certification by the Ontario Ministry of Health e-Physician Project and Alberta’s P.O.S.P. software and system conformance validation and certification processes.
- Acting for both vendors and acquirers of information technology systems, both small and very large, in the Health Informatics arena for over 2 decades.
- Acting for a large number of small- to medium-sized business enterprises, from start-ups to pre-IPO, in areas, which have either a technology basis or commercial intellectual property component.
- Focusing on the invention of new legal and contractual structures to deal with new technologies and the increasingly complex web of relationships within the technology sector.
- Advising “bulletin boards”, ISPs, ASP’s, web-enabled transaction providers and infrastructure providers such as ATM providers and secure network providers, in the growing e-commerce, internet, and telecommunications or web-based business sector and the increasingly complex web of relationships within the technology sector.
- Working with clients on strategies for registration of patent, trademark and other industrial property rights nationally and internationally, as well as contract law, licensing, non-disclosure, non-competition and other similar rights-management issues.
- Advising and counselling many commercial organizations, chiefly entrepreneurial and start-up, owner-managed companies, with regard to corporate governance, taxation, shareholder relations, financings, rights acquisition, employment of technologists, conflicts of interest in technology or intellectual property ownership, tax-driven roll-over transactions of technology, licensing in and out, and related legal matters, chiefly in the computer and software areas.
- Advising and consulting to the GPS/Land Survey industry, in Canada and internationally and has acquired an in-depth knowledge of the technology behind GPS and the requirements of the survey industry and its regulation, customers, insurers, the financing of specialized “one-off” equipment and of R&D functions, and then the commercialisation, through consulting and international partnerships, of the technology and of spin-off improvements and uses for the technology.
- Working with agricultural biotechnology ventures in the cattle and genetically-altered seed industries on technology issues and, in particular, was lead advisor to multi-party, multi-national licensing consortia dealing with seed genotypes in the linseed area.
- Advising businesses of all stripes of their compliance needs in the new emerging Privacy Law arena; advising existing providers in the areas of Health Information privacy and Freedom of Information and Access to Information requirements and regulatory regimes, regionally, nationally and internationally.
- Advising professional self-governing bodies on IT, encryption (PK1), intellectual property, privacy and other technology-related matters.
Professional and Community Activities
- Member, Board of Directors, Calgary Science Foundation
- Law Society of Alberta and member of the Corporate and Commercial Advisory Committee
- Member, Canadian Bar Association, Intellectual Property and Technology subsection, Privacy and Freedom of Information Subsection (executive)
- Fellow Member and Information Technology Committee Member, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
- Member, Licensing Executives Society
- Member, American Bar Association and subsections including Intellectual Property, Technology and Law, Law Practice Management and Health Law.
- Founder and member of Partners in Technology Society
- Member, Calgary Council of Advanced Technology
- Member and Director, Canadian Society for the Advancement of Legal Technology
- Member, Academic Committee, Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School
- Has spoken and written for industry trade groups, universities and other educational institutions and professional groups, primarily about the interplay of intellectual property, technology, the law, ethics, privacy and professional responsibility.
- Has taught courses at the University of Calgary (MBA and Faculty of Law) and at Osgoode Hall, Faculty of Law (E-commerce).
