Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Exciting times in Canadian Trademark Law


 (And, yes, I do mean Trademark -- not trade-mark.)

 

We are so IN -- Madrid Protocol, the Nice Agreement and the Singapore Treaty

This year’s budget implementation bill proposes substantial changes to Canada’s trade-mark laws and practices designed to help ease our way into the international trademark treaty world of the Madrid Protocol, the Nice Agreement and the Singapore Treaty. You can go here to learn more about these at the World Intellectual Property Organization website.

Finally, no more tedious conversations about prior use

Of more interest, the Bill eliminates the requirement that a trademark must be used in order to be registered.  It also eliminates the concept of associated marks and distinguishing guise.   I know several of my clients and suspect most of the world will rejoice at this.  The Bill also includes amendments that reduce the registration term from 15 years to 10 years, allow for divisional applications and replace the spelling of “trade-mark” in Canada to “trademark”.

Bill C-31, the Economic Action Plan 2014 -- March 28, 2014

What’s really interesting here is that because these changes are in a Budget Bill, this WILL BE ENACTED with little change and with little or no public consultation.  

If you want (although I can't imagine why) you can read the Bill here .