Category Archives: Canada

Canada, Patents, Trademark

CIPO Fees to Increase After January 1, 2021

Close up of engineering drawing with electric motor

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) has announced that many of its fees for Canadian trademarks, patents, industrial designs, and integrated circuit topographies will increase on January 1, 2021. Among the fees being increased by 2% are those for an application to register a trademark as well as examination of patent and industrial design applications. A full list of the adjusted fees can be found in the links above or on the CIPO website.

The CIPO website should be consulted for an up-to-date listing of the adjusted fees because the applicable Tariff of Fees in the Patent Rules may not yet be updated. Whether the current fee or the adjusted fee must be paid for a given service will depend on the date on which the fee is received by CIPO, not the date on which the service is requested.

Fasken’s team of experienced intellectual property lawyers, patent agents, and trademark agents would be pleased to assist you with any and all CIPO matters.

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Analysis, Canada, COVID, Intellectual property

UPDATED: The Canadian Intellectual Property Office Has Extended Deadlines Until AUGUST 10th

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) continues to provide updates on the continuing disruption to IP office deadlines under the Patent Act, Trademarks Act and/or Industrial Design Act caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. As we reported previously, March 16th to July 17th were considered “designated days” under the applicable Canadian intellectual property legislation; the time to respond to certain CIPO actions therefore had been extended to July 20th.

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Canada, Patents

Canada Announces Accelerated Exam for Pandemic Related Inventions Filed by “Small Entities”

On July  7th, 2020, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) announced a pilot project allowing applicants who qualify as “small entities” (e.g. universities, or businesses employing 50 or fewer employees) to expedite the examination of their patent applications for COVID-19-related inventions. Details of the program can be found on the CIPO website here. The program is limited, however, to only fifty (50) patent applications.

As businesses work to address the COVID-19 pandemic, this pilot project is designed to help smaller sized entities get products to market as soon as possible. To request accelerated examination under the program, applicants must include a statement that the technology is medical and related to COVID-19 and that an approval for its use has been obtained from or has been submitted to Health Canada.  Applicants must also have requested examination and paid the applicable Canadian government fee for requesting examination. Finally, the application must be open to public inspection or the applicant must have submitted a request for early publication. There is no additional fees to use this process.

For further information on whether you qualify and how to take advantage of this program or any other program at CIPO, please reach out to one of the patent professionals at Fasken.

Fasken’s IP group continues to take steps to ensure continuity of our services to our clients during the pandemic. As CIPO’s online solutions are available 24/7 and from anywhere, we are available to continue to assist our clients during this period. Please don’t hesitate to reach out, should you need assistance with your intellectual property.

Learn more about our patent practice.

Canada, Patents

Changes to the PMPRB Delayed Due to COVID-19

UPDATE: On April 14, 2022, the Minister of Health announced that the federal government will not proceed with amendments to the Patented Medicines Regulations introducing new pharmacoeconomic factors and requiring that price and revenue information be reported net of all adjustments. The federal government will proceed with amendments establishing a new basket of comparator countries, with a coming-into-force date of July 1, 2022. For more information, see our Life Sciences Bulletin on the Minister’s announcement.
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The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) has delayed the coming into force of the amended Patent Medicines Regulations to January 1, 2021.

The Regulations Amending the Patented Medicines Regulations (Additional Factors and Information Reporting Requirements) were set to come into force on July 1, 2020 and provide the PMPRB with additional price regulatory factors to assess whether the price of a patented medicine sold in Canada was “excessive”. But on June 1st, 2020, the Canadian government delayed their coming into force, citing an increased demand on the pharmaceutical industry in light of COVID-19.

Then, on June 19th, 2020, the PMPRB released its Draft Guidelines 2020. These changes were the result of extensive stakeholder feedback received during public consultations. While the new Guidelines have the same conceptual structure as those released back in November 2019, there are now some substantial quantitative changes.

In particular, in the new Draft Guidelines 2020, the thresholds for identifying high-priority drugs has changed: The PMPRB will classify new patented drugs as either high or low priority based on their anticipated financial impact. If they have a high treatment cost (now above $90,000 annually per patient) or large anticipated marketed size (now above $50M in sales) then they will be subject to a more comprehensive price review. This comprehensive review will take into consideration new additional price regulatory factors, including a drug’s pharmacoeconomic value, market size and the gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita in Canada.

The Draft Guidelines are available for public comment until July 20, 2020. We have extensive experience in this area and are available for a consultation if you are interested in responding.

Learn more about our patent practice and our life sciences practice.

Analysis, Canada, Patents, Trademark

Cease and Desist Letters: Use with Care

Cease and desist letters are an important part of a lawyer’s tool kit: they notify the recipient of a claim, and ideally lead to the client resolving an issue without litigation. However, receiving such a letter can be unpleasant. They may even seem excessive, as if they were intended to achieve the maximum possible threatening effect. In Fluid Energy Group Ltd. v. Exaltexx Inc. (“Fluid v. Exaltexx”), Justice McHaffie of the Federal Court found that that indeed appeared to be the intention of Fluid’s letters, taking the unusual step of issuing an injunction ordering Fluid not to communicate with Exaltexx’s suppliers with respect to such suppliers’ alleged infringement of Fluid’s patents.

Where is the line between an appropriate cease and desist letter and one worthy of an injunction? In the case of letters alleging patent infringement, strangely enough, the answer may lie in section 7(a) the Trademarks Act, which was the basis for Exaltexx’s motion for the interlocutory injunction. That section reads: “No person shall … make a false or misleading statement tending to discredit the business, goods or services of a competitor…” This provision, however, must be read down so as to include only statements relating to the competitor’s intellectual property.

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