Well-known aviation author and book publisher, Michael J Culhane, doing business variously as "Accelerated Aviation Training" and "Culhane Books" sued Aero Training Products (this website), claiming that Aero Training Products was contravening the Competition Act of Canada by giving away FREE On-Line Exam Tutor Services to pilots.
Culhane lost his original case against ATP when the Federal Court ruled that he did not prove his argument that ATP's Free Online Exam TutorTM was the reason for his declining sales. Culhane appealed this judgement. The Federal Court of Appeal, on April 11,2005, again tossed his complaint out on its ear.
In his original lawsuit, Culhane was alleging that Aero Training Products Inc (ATP), was harming his publishing business by giving away FREE on-line exam tutoring services to student pilots. Lawyer Culhane figured that none of ATP's excellent tutoring should be made available to student pilots for free. Culhane initially demanded that we charge for our free tutoring, and then demanded that the Federal Court shut us down.
The Federal Court of Canada's Appeal Court again tossed Culhane's arguments noting that nothing he said in his appeal changed the fact that our free interactive, tutoring tools are still a legitimate marketing device, and nothing about our free exam tutor is harmful to any other publishing enterprise. When you read through the court's decision, you can see that they felt that all our internet tools are legal, modern, and EXCELLENT teaching tools! The original judgement (Federal Court of Canada Docket No T-1491-00) dismissed all of lawyer Culhane's allegations that our on-line tools had the effect of putting him out of business. Our easy-to-access Exam Tutor is just that: a free interactive teaching tool. The fact that old-style paper exam booklets have existed for a long time doesn't mean that new ideas like free internet exam tools can't poke their nose into the marketplace - even if they do disturb the equilibrium of the marketplace.
Culhane still wasn't pleased with these two painful and bruising judgements. After losing in the Federal Court of Appeal, Culhane launched a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the court decisions were unfair. He asked the Supreme Court to please overturn all the previous court decisions, and to please restore some semblance of traditional structure to the marketplace. He wanted his books to be the market model (that is, "$79.95" versus "FREE"). Again, Culhane lost. The Supreme Court of Canada, on October 6 2005, declined to hear any more of Culhane's losing arguments. They finally tossed Culhane out of court for the last time, and awarded costs AGAIN to Aero Training Products. Our Free On-line Exam Tutor is now here to stay!
The brilliant three-time defense of Aero Training Products was prepared by experienced litigation attorneys Burke Tomchenko and Morrison.
But further than that, we at Aero Training Products are hugely relieved that Culhane's efforts to restrict our entertaining exam tutoring tools, have again been decisively and permanently dismissed by the Canadian courts - this time, the Supreme Court of Canada. This was an important and excellent decision for both aviation training and for the internet.