Publications

November 30, 2023

Advancing Patent Fee Payments in Canada to Avoid Significant 2024 Fee Increases

Canadian patent government fees will increase up to 36% on January 1, 2024. The main fee increases are presented in the table below. Applicants may therefore wish to take certain actions and pay the accompanying fees in Canada by the end of 2023 to benefit from the lower 2023 rates at least in the (…)

October 6, 2023

Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO): Fee Increase

CIPO has announced an increase in their fees as of January 1, 2024. Their current fees will be increased by at least 25%. This increase will apply not only to trademarks, but also to patents, industrial designs and copyrights. For example, the anticipated official fee to file an application for (…)

October 4, 2023

Powerful Data, Powerful Business

A patent landscape provides a bird’s-eye view of the patenting activity related to a specific technology. It can be an invaluable tool for your organization as the analysis of patent data reveals business, scientific and technological trends. Indeed, many industries increasingly rely on patent (…)

August 2, 2023

Hesitation over software patents in Canada

Last Wednesday (July 26), the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) handed down its highly awaited decision on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (software patents). In Canada (Attorney General) v. Benjamin Moore & Co. (2023 CAF 168), the FCA rejected the test proposed by the (…)

March 20, 2023

Clear skies overhead, patent marking protects well, innovation blooms

“Clear skies overhead, patent marking protects well, innovation blooms.” “Patent marking” is the practice of labelling a product to provide notification that it is protected by one or more patents. From a public perspective, it serves three related purposes: avoiding innocent infringement; (…)

January 6, 2023

Patent applications and processing times – What’s right for you

Part 1: Four reasons to slow down and four reasons to speed up the process Part 2: Slowing down the process (CA, US, EP, PCT) Part 3: Fast track (CA, US, EP, PCT) Part 1: Why slow down or speed up the process? Slowing down the process Why would anyone want to slow down the process when it (…)

September 7, 2022

Ten things you should know about the amendments to Quebec’s Charter of the French language

Quebec recently enacted Bill 96, entitled An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, which aims to overhaul the Charter of the French language. Here are 10 key changes in this law that will impose significant obligations on businesses: As of June 1, 2025, businesses (…)

August 3, 2022

Kickstarting Examination in View of Upcoming Changes to Canadian Patenting Practice

As we reported earlier, the Canadian government published proposed amendments to the Patent Rules in July 2021, to further streamline Canadian patent examination to pave the way for a future patent term adjustment (PTA) system in Canada as per the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), as (…)

April 22, 2022

Celebrating youth innovation!

This year’s World IP Day is upon us, with the theme “IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future”. In honor of this theme (and at the risk of making our adult readers feel a bit less accomplished), we thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of these wonderful inventions of young, (…)

February 14, 2022

Doing Business as Usual – Prior User Rights Under Canadian Patent Law

Prior user rights have long been recognized in Canadian patent law. These rights, which are a defence against patent infringement, are seen as a means of ensuring fairness by allowing a person who has independently manufactured, used or acquired an invention that is subsequently patented to continue (…)

December 1, 2021

Do you know your open-source licences?

Do you have the right to copy source code written and developed by someone else? The answer to this question depends on the situation; however, even in the context of open innovation, intellectual property rights will be the starting point for any analysis required to obtain such an answer. In the (…)

November 16, 2021

Entrepreneurs and Intellectual Property: Avoid these 13 mistakes to protect yourself (Part 3 of 3)

In the third and final entry of this three-part article series, we share with you the last set of intellectual property (IP)–related mistakes (mistakes #10 to #13) that we regularly see with startups. We hope you will find it useful for your business. Please be sure to read our first and second (…)

November 2, 2021

Canadian Patent Practice Update: Act Now to Avoid Excess Claim Fees

Excess claim fees on the horizon As reported earlier, the Canadian government published proposed amendments to the Patent Rules on July 3, 2021. A significant component of the proposal is the introduction of excess claim fees on the order of $100 CAD for each claim beyond 20 claims, which will be (…)