A private member’s bill, C-440 was introduced yesterday that would abolish Crown Copyright. Continue reading Crown Copyright
All posts by Alan Macek
Patent Consultation
CIPO has announced a consultation on changes to the Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) relating to administrative topics as part of changes to the Patent Act and Rules. Topics covered including filing requirements, divisionals, priority, transfers/assignments, corrections, abandonment/reinstatement, and due care. The consultation is open until May 27, 2019.
Trademarks
On March 17, Canada formally acceded to the Madrid, Singapore and Nice treaties relating to trademarks. Substantial amendments to the Trademarks Act and Regulations come into force June 17, 2019. Continue reading Trademarks
Competition
The Competition Bureau has published its final “Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines”. The guidelines provide the Bureau’s approach to alleged anti-competitive effects of intellectual property, including settlements under the PM(NOC) Regulations, patent pools, standard essential patents, and patent assertion entities.
Judicial Appointments
Justice Locke of the Federal Court was elevated to the Federal Court of Appeal. Angela Furlanetto of DLA Piper was appointed a Prothonotary of the Federal Court. Appointments were also made today to the courts in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick. Continue reading Judicial Appointments
ISED News
Last week, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada made a couple of announcements as part of the government’s IP Strategy:
- Call to launch intellectual property collective – There is $30 million in funding over four years to create a non-profit organization to work with companies in a selected sector to help them use their IP more strategically.
- College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents – The government is seeking candidates for the first board of directors for the new regulator of patent agents and trademark agents.
2018 Wrap Up
We are now a couple of weeks into 2019 but I thought a brief summary of 2018 may be of interest:
- 175 IP decisions reported (201 in 2017)
- 363 new IP Federal Court proceedings started (376 in 2017)
- 83 patent infringement cases (50 in 2017)
- 23,499 patents granted (24,099 in 2017)
- 25,222 trademarks registered (29,766 in 2017)
- 9 IP related SCC proceedings started (11 in 2017)
- 6 IP trials in Federal Court (10 in 2017)
- around 120 trial days (~150 in 2017)
- Over 400,000 emails sent to IPPractice subscribers
Top Patentees 2018
In 2018, approximately 23,500 patents were granted by the Canadian Patent Office. Halliburton Energy Services was the top recipient of patents with over twice the patents obtained as any other applicant. The other top applicants were General Electric Company, The Boeing Company, and BlackBerry Limited. Continue reading Top Patentees 2018
Online
Due to a network problem last week, IPPractice was not operational for several days. Today’s email includes the missing updates but let me know if you think I have missed anything.
Budget Bill
Bill C-86, the budget bill that implements changes to the Patent Act, the Trade-marks Act and the Copyright Act, enacts the College of Patent Agents and Trade-mark Agents Act and makes changes for IP licenses in insolvency received royal assent yesterday. Bill C-86 received minor amendments as it went through parliament.