CIPO is rolling out its “Next Generation Patent” system in the coming weeks, with MyCIPO Patents, a new online portal for patent services, launching on . The current National Phase Entry and Maintenance Fee Payment tools will be deactivated next week. The online Canadian Patent Database will be offline from July 5, with resumption “expected to occur between and
Tag Archives: Patents
Patent Term Adjustment
Proposed amendments to the Patent Rules were published in the Canada Gazette for consultation to implement patent term adjustment by January 2025. Term may be added if the issue date is more than 5 years from the filing/national entry date, or 3 years from requesting examination, whichever is later, particularly time attributable to the patent applicant. Several miscellaneous amendments are also proposed. Continue reading Patent Term Adjustment
CIPO Waiver
As mentioned last week, CIPO waived underpayments on $50 small entity fees which should have been increased under the Service Fee Act. Corresponding Rules Amending the Patent Rules amend s3 and add s139.1 to allow the Commissioner to waive payments of fee differences in certain circumstances, are now available.
CIPO Waiver
CIPO has issued a practice notice waiving the requirement to pay difference between the amounts paid for certain $50 small entity maintenance fees up to today and the amount actually required as increased by the Service Fee Act because of incorrect information posted by CIPO. Accompanying amendments to the Patent Rules that came into force earlier this week address situations where fees are paid incorrectly as a result of erroneous information provided by the Commissioner of Patents.
AI Inventors
The USPTO has issued guidance on “AI-assisted inventions”. The “Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions” states that, “a natural person must have significantly contributed to each claim in a patent application or patent”. Continue reading AI Inventors
Patentees 2023
In 2023, approximately 27,500 patents were granted by the Canadian Patent Office, the most since I’ve been tracking patent stats, and up substantially from a slow year in 2022 when only 18,125 were granted. Boeing was the top recipient of patents in Canada in 2023. The other top recipients were Halliburton Energy Services, Huawei Technologies, 10353744 Canada Ltd. and Qualcomm. See more for the top 20. Continue reading Patentees 2023
Due Care
CIPO has shared a “Due Care Observations” notice that says that many requests for reinstatement on the basis of due care i) do not address the ‘relevant point in time’, ii) refer to ‘unintentionality’ rather than ‘due care’, iii) do not address that ‘all authorized persons must show due care’, and iv) ‘lack information’ on what actions were taken to avoid a failure. The observations also address the situation where an agent remains of record but an annuity service is paying maintenance fees.
US Supreme Court
The United States Supreme Court issued several decisions yesterday that may be of interest:
- Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google LLC – social media companies are not liable for terrorist attacks by hosting accounts from terrorists: “To impose aiding-and-abetting liability for passive nonfeasance, plaintiffs must make a strong showing of assistance and scienter. Plaintiffs fail to do so.”
- Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith – copyright fair use does not cover Warhol’s use of a photograph by Goldsmith to create a silkscreen portrait of Prince -> “the purpose of the Orange Prince image is substantially the same as that of Goldsmith’s original photograph. Both are portraits of Prince used in magazines to illustrate stories about Prince.”
- Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi – patent enablement -> “Amgen’s claims sweep much broader than the 26 exemplary antibodies it identifies by their amino acid sequences. Amgen has failed to enable all that it has claimed, even allowing for a reasonable degree of experimentation
Supreme Court
Today, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Nova Chemicals Corp. v. Dow Chemical Co., 2022 SCC 43 regarding the quantification of an accounting of profits as a result of patent infringement. The majority dismissed the appeal with a focus on the ‘non-infringing option’: “a non-infringing option helps courts isolate the profits causally attributable to the invention from the profits which arose at the same time the infringing product was used or sold, but which are not causally attributable to the invention.” The majority also upheld springboard profits, saying, “a portion of such post-expiry profits may be causally attributable to infringement of the invention.” Continue reading Supreme Court
Europe
A couple of developments in Europe that may be of interest: 1) The long awaited United Patent Court is scheduled to open its doors and accept cases as of April 1, 2023; and 2) the EPO is abolishing the “10-day rule” for responding to deadlines, effectively reducing the time available to respond.