Amendments to the Federal Courts Rules, primarily to update the Tariff B regime for cost awards, are coming into force later this month. The amendments introduce a new Tariff B that has three columns, more litigation steps and more units. The Rules Committee estimates it will increase cost awards by about 25% “thereby aligning the tariff more closely with the amounts typically awarded under the ‘lump sum’ approach” and provide a “more consistent and predictable regime.” The changes also replace remaining references to “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge”. Continue reading Federal Courts Rules
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Proceeedings
Several matters started earlier this year were missed from the email alerts, including several IP proceedings. These missed IP proceeding are included below. Continue reading Proceeedings
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
The Federal Courts and the Canadian Intellectual Property Offices will be closed on Tuesday September 30th for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour the children who never returned home and survivors of residential schools. Continue reading National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
CIPO
Most of CIPO’s online applications for patents, trademarks, copyright and industrial designs will be offline this week: “Due to scheduled maintenance, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) e-commerce applications [] will be unavailable from Friday, at 8 pm until Sunday, at 10 pm (ET).” Continue reading CIPO
CIPO
CIPO has announced downtime this weekend: “Due to essential maintenance for government cloud services, all e-commerce applications at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) will be unavailable on Saturday, August 16, from 12:00 am to 11:59 pm (ET).”
Outage
Unfortunately, there was a significant server outage last week on the system that supports this website and the daily email service. I’m still working on getting things back online. In the meantime, some aspects of the website may not be fully operational. Thanks for your patience! Continue reading Outage
Appointments
Darren Thorne, Member, Refugee Appeal Division, at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in Toronto, and Andrew J. Brouwer, Senior Counsel, Refugee Law Office, at Legal Aid Ontario in Toronto were appointed Judges of the Federal Court. Appointments were also made today to the courts in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.
Appointments
Danielle Ferron, Partner at Langlois Lawyers LLP in Montréal, was appointed a Judge of the Federal Court. Appointments were also made today in British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, and the Tax Court.
Trademark Amendments
Several amendments to the Trademarks Act and accompanying regulations are coming into force on April 1, 2025. To the Act, the changes include challenges to prohibited marks, limits on relief if there has been no use by the trademark owner, and changes to the discretion of the Federal Court on appeals from the registrar. The amendments to the regulations are directed to cost awards, confidentiality, and case management at the TMOB.
IPH
Australian-based intellectual property services group, IPH Limited, announced it is acquiring Bereskin & Parr and combining it with Smart & Biggar. It acquired Smart & Biggar in October 2022, and had also acquired Ridout & Maybee in September 2023 and Robic in November 2023.