The Patent Appeal Board has issued its final decision on the redetermination following the Federal Court’s decision in Dusome v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 FC 1809. The PAB concluded that the claims were not directed to patentable subject-matter. Continue reading Patentable Subject Matter
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
The Federal Courts and the Canadian Intellectual Property Offices are closed on today, September 30th for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour the children who never returned home and survivors of residential schools.
Appointments
Justice Nicholas McHaffie, a Judge of the Federal Court, was appointed a Judge of the Federal Court of Appeal. An appointment was also made today in Quebec. Continue reading Appointments
IPIC
I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at the IPIC Annual Meeting in Ottawa this week. Please let me know if you are attending as well! Continue reading IPIC
Patents
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) launched the Key Technology Expedited Program (KTEP), replacing the earlier program expediting pandemic-related inventions with a new pilot relating to Canada’s “critical minerals supply chain, including technologies used to process, extract or refine minerals on Canada’s critical minerals list.” CIPO also summarized the consultation feedback it received on its accelerated patent examination programs. Continue reading Patents
Summer break
I’m going to be on vacation next week so decided to pause my daily IPPractice emails. I plan to resume on August 17 and will catch up on whatever was missed once I am back. Continue reading Summer break
Pre-grant Compensation
In my latest column for Slaw on patent publication dates, I discuss how the publication date for patent applications can be later than the typical 18-months secrecy period due to processing delays at the patent office. I have found regularly filed patent applications with publication dates more than 2.5 years from the priority date. For regularly patent applications published in 2025, the average secrecy period was about 23 months according to my analysis.
Patent Litigation
I discussed trends in Canadian patent litigation with Tim Wilbur for an article in Canadian Lawyer entitled “Patent litigation in Canada at record low despite capable courts“. I am quoted in the article on the Federal Court’s use of case management and assignment of early trial dates in patent litigation proceeding. The article also includes statistics from IPPractice.ca.
Patentable Subject Matter
In its decision released today in Pharmascience Inc. v. Janssen Inc., 2026 SCC 26, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the lower court decisions finding that methods of medical treatment are unpatentable subject matter but the dosage regime at issue patentable. Continue reading Patentable Subject Matter
Patentable Subject Matter
The Supreme Court of Canada announced that it will deliver its decision in Pharmascience Inc. v. Janssen Inc. relating to the patentability of methods of medical treatment at 9:45 a.m. ET on Friday, July 17, 2026.