Our professionals regularly publish on new developments in intellectual property law. Our Editor is: Pat Cotter.
Before refusing a patent application, the Canadian Patent Office convenes a panel of the Patent Appeal Board (the “PAB”) to review the application and provide a recommendation to the Commissioner of Patents. This recommendation and the Commissioner’s determination on the allowability of the application are published together as a “Commissioner’s Decision”.
Design rights are intended to pertain to visual features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament, or a combination of such features applied to a finished article. This is different from patents which cover new and useful inventions or improvements to an existing invention.
On January 16, 2017, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) issued a practice notice outlining six (6) changes to its industrial design practice. The practice notice can be found here. The six changes are related to:
1. Computer-generated animated designs;
2. Colour as a registrable feature;
3. Reducing time limits to respond to examiner’s reports
4. Searching to assess originality where there is a priority claim
5. New notices of possible refusal
6. Delaying the registration of an application
These changes are effective immediately. The specifics of each change is outlined below.
