Protective Orders

For those following the recent Federal Court of Appeal decision in Canadian National Railway Company v. BNSF Railway Company, 2020 FCA 45, stating, “Protective orders undoubtedly remain pertinent and useful for intellectual property litigants and there is no justification, legal or otherwise, for stifling this long-standing practice” may be interested in my article for Slaw earlier this year on how we got here and the model orders published by the Federal Court. Continue reading Protective Orders

Trademark Filings in 2019

Approximately 68000 trademark applications were filed in 2019 (up about 6% from 2018). About 33% were filed without an agent (25% of marks prior to June 17; 44% of marks filed after although CIPO appears to be still updating agents for 2019 incoming Madrid marks) compared to about 24% in 2018. There were about 7500 incoming Madrid filings. See more stats, including my annual list of firms filing the most trademark applications. Continue reading Trademark Filings in 2019

Innovation Report

The report, “Intellectual Property in Ontario’s Innovation Ecosystem”, was published today by Ontario’s Expert Panel on IP chaired by Jim Balsillie: “… it was clear that the most significant recurring themes revolved around questions of capacity-building in IP education and access to specialized IP legal services as well as the structure and governance of the various ‘public sector’ entities within the ecosystem.” Continue reading Innovation Report