Earlier this year, four “Old Act” patents were granted, the first time such patents have been granted since 2014. These recently granted patents have priority dates between 1978 and 1981 so have been in prosecution for over 40 years. Continue reading Old Act
Tag Archives: Canadian Intellectual Property Office
Updates
A few updates over the last few days:
- The Copyright Board has new Rules of Practice and Procedure published in the Canada Gazette yesterday.
- The Canadian Trademarks Office and Opposition Board announced electronic correspondence. Their systems will be unavailable from 3pm ET this Friday until Monday morning for the product release.
- In Europe, the Unified Patent Court will launch on June 1, 2023 with a sunrise period that started March 1st.
Fees
CIPO has issued a reminder that many fees have changed as of January 1st with most fees increasing by about 3%. They have also published a consultation in the Canada Gazette for a 25% fee increase for next January as well as expanding the definition of ‘small entity’.
CIPO
CIPO has announced that maintenance activities will make several online applications inaccessible for portions of Sunday October 2nd and Monday October 3rd including the General Correspondence application for patents, National Entry Request (NER) Online Solution, Patent Maintenance Fee Electronic Service, Patent E-filing, Industrial Design General Correspondence and Copyright General Correspondence. Patent Rule amendments come into force on October 3rd, including excess claim fees and requests for continued examination, that apply to applications where the request for examination is filed on or after October 3rd.
Patent Life Cycle
I tracked the 42,000 or so patent applications in Canada with a 2001 filing date which all expired by the end of 2021. Only about 17% were still enforceable at expiry but about 30% were in force at the 10 year mark. Overall, about 43% of the original applications (about 18,000) were granted and 118 were litigated in the Federal Court. Continue reading Patent Life Cycle
Closures
The Federal Court and CIPO will be closed on Monday, September 19 for Her Late Majesty’s State Funeral. Both the Federal Court and CIPO will also be closed on September 30 for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Continue reading Closures
Patentable Subject Matter
As reported yesterday, the government/CIPO has appealed the decision of Benjamin Moore v. AGC, 2022 FC 923 regarding the proper test to determine whether a patent application is directed to computer-implemented patentable subject matter. The Notice of Appeal (pdf) states in part, “The Judge erred by ordering the Commissioner to apply the New Test because it contradicts binding jurisprudence of the Federal Court of Appeal in [Amazon] and [Schlumberger].”
CIPO
CIPO has opened a consultation on proposed fee increases until April 29th. “Based on current projections, CIPO is expected to run out of authority to spend by September 2024. … To address this structural deficit, CIPO is proposing to adjust most of its fees by 25%…”
Agents
AI
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has registered a copyrighted work listing AI software as a co-author. The work, entitled “SURYAST” lists, “RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App” as a co-author.