Well, it's been ten months since Bill C-31, Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No.1,
was tabled. As you may recall, the Bill contains major amendments to the
current trademark system, one of the most important of which is to
eliminate use as a registration requirement. It also allows for implementation of the Madrid Protocol and adoption of the Nice
Classification of goods and services. Of significance also, it reduces the renewal period to 10
years which seems to be of most interest to my clients.
So, what progress has been made? Not much really. On June 19th, Bill C-31 received Royal Assent
and is now the law in Canada. The next day the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) released this document: Amendments to the Trade-marks Act: Questions and Answers
However, the new Law needs Regulations in order to actually function and CIPO produced a discussion document in October outlining the proposed regulations for comments. If you are so inclined, you can read that here, http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr03851.html
The consultation period ended on November 30 and no doubt numerous responses were filed. Further consultations on fees and set up procedures and
costs for Madrid Protocol applications are expected.
CIPO has also held a couple of webinars in order to explain their perspective, the latest of which made it quite clear that full implementation of the
amendments will not happen before early 2016. For now, the current
registration regime will remain in force and it is business as usual at CIPO.
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