We, at the same hearing, appealed the suggestion in Canadian law that "giving away a free internet service" is the same as "selling a product below cost". At the time, this was a small, but important, legal issue. Since Culhane's whole case was tossed out, the court also dismissed our detailed appeal of the various definitions of "selling", so it will be up to the next set of litigants to sort this one out.
In his original lawsuit, Culhane was alleging that Aero Training Products Inc (that's us), was harming his exam booklet publishing business by (us again) giving away free on-line exam services to student pilots. Lawyer Culhane figured that none of our excellent training material should be made available to student pilots for free. We're honored that Culhane sees our work as a valuable service, but it's possible that a publisher like Culhane could see an advantage in beating up the market for free pilot teaching tools (his Commercial Pilot 2005 exam booklet sells for $59.95 each). Culhane initially demanded that we charge big-city prices for our free exam tools, and then hired a gang of lawyers to demand that the Federal Court shut us down. Well, we're not afraid of big-city suits, so we told his gang of lawyers (there was a whole bunch of them by now) to take-off! We're not going to give up our excellent free aviation teaching tools!
On April 11,2005, 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, exam 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! 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 (yet again) that everything was so 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, "$59.95" versus "FREE"). Well, once 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 attorney Gene Fraser of the firm of Burke Tomchenko and Fraser.
But further than that, all of us at Aero Training Products Inc are hugely relieved that Culhane's blustering efforts to restrict our entertaining exam 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.
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Our excellent free On-Line Exams for Pilots are still available at www.aerotraining.com!