Implementing regulations for the new College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents are published in the Canada Gazette for a 30 day consultation. The regulations and transition provisions would provide for the transfer of responsibility for agents, including entrance examinations and conduct, to the new college. The regulations would establish an Investigations Committee and the Discipline Committee with a majority of public members, impose a residency requirement on agents, and replace ‘firm’ agents with the option to appointment of all the patent agents at the same firm.
Tag Archives: Patents
Fees
A number of fees at CIPO are increasing by 2% as of January 1, 2021 due to application of the Service Fees Act. As a result, the fees listed in schedules in the various regulations, such as Schedule 2 to the Patent Rules, may no longer be accurate. For example, the regular patent filing fee will increase to $408 as of January 1st. CIPO has an updated fee schedule. Application fees for a Certificate of Supplementary Protection also increase by 2% but not until April 2021.
Patent Collective
Canada’s “Innovation Asset Collective” was launched today with $30m in support through the government’s Patent Collective Pilot Program. According to Minister Bains’ announcement, “The Collective will bring businesses together to help them make the most strategic use of their intellectual property.” Continue reading Patent Collective
Patentable Subject Matter
CIPO has published practice guidance on patentable subject matter following the recent decision in Choueifaty as well as some examples for computer-implemented, medical diagnostic and medical use inventions. CIPO indicated that updates to MOPOP are coming later and will be subject to consultation.
PTAB
In other Supreme Court news, earlier today, the United States Supreme Court granted cert in Arthrex considering the constitutionality of the appointment of USPTO’s PTAB judges and their subsequent decisions.
Patent Appeal Board
The Patent Appeal Board has migrated the reporting of its decision to the Lexum/CanLII platform. I’ve finally updated my notifications for this platform so starting in today’s IPPractice email, and for the next several days I’ll be catching up on decisions issued since May of this year.
CIPO
Patent Branch has issued a Practice Notice addressing requests to record a transfer, registering document and changing a name under sections 124, 125 and 126 of the Patent Rules and section 49 of the Patent Act.
Top Patentees 2019
In 2019, approximately 22,000 patents were granted by the Canadian Patent Office. Halliburton Energy Services was again the top recipient of patents with over twice the patents obtained as any other applicant. The other top applicants were General Electric Company, Nissan Motor, The Boeing Company and Siemens. Continue reading Top Patentees 2019
CIPO
Further to the suspension of certain deadlines (see earlier post), earlier today CIPO published a FAQ on how CIPO intends to apply the suspension.
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