Trends, analysis and insights in IP Law
Companies owning trademarks should reserve their trademarks with blockchain naming systems. The risk of infringement of blockchain domain names is real and remedies are limited at this time. Thus, it becomes essential to protect the intellectual property rights of companies preventively within the blockchain ecosystem.
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Most companies doing business in Canada prefer to use the same branding across all Provinces and Territories, particularly for consumer product labelling and signage of consumer-facing businesses. This means that Quebec’s language law often defines how brands are presented across Canada. With new legislation adopted on May 25, 2022 (Bill 96), the Charter of the French Language is now much less favourable to trademark owners.
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On June 17, the 2022 Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) issued a decision [PDF] pursuant to the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS Agreement”) and allowed certain members to use patented inventions for the production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines in specific circumstances (“Ministerial Decision”).
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UPDATE: Further to the below article, the Patent Rules have now been published in Canada Gazette, Part II, Volume 156, Number 13. This issue of the Canada Gazette may be accessed here in HTML format, or here in PDF format.
As covered in the blog previously, Canada’s patent regime has been undergoing significant changes. Our earlier posts about these changes and what steps patentees can take to mitigate the impacts of these changes can be found here and here. The amendments are meant to reduce prosecution time and streamline the examination process.
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In its recent Milano Pizza Ltd. v. 6034799 Canada Inc. decision, the Federal Court ordered the expungement of a trademark registration because the plaintiff did not exercise sufficient control over the use of the trademark by its licensees. This decision provides a helpful reminder of the dangers of relying on verbal agreements instead of written trademark licenses, and the need for trademark owners to maintain control over their licensees.
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