IPPractice

This site is my collection of updates, statistics and analysis on intellectual property in Canada. I am a partner at DLA Piper (Canada) LLP practicing in the area of intellectual property (more about me). Material on this website are my own views and do not reflect the position of DLA Piper (Canada) LLP, any of its member firms around the world, or any of its clients. IPPractice.ca grew out of my hobby to gather and share interesting updates on intellectual property to friends and colleagues. Highlights include:

Daily email service (sample email, subscribe, preferences)
Patent retriever
Federal Court docket browser
Litigation reports and statistics
Patent and trademark reports and statistics

Recent Posts:

TMOB

The Trademark Opposition Board has issued a practice notice requiring a “Declaration of use of AI” when “generative AI is used to create content in a document”. A couple of decisions have identified hallucinated decisions cited in submissions – see 2024 TMOB 150 and 2024 TMOB 211.

Judges’ Dinner

I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at the CBA IP Day and Judges’ Dinner in Ottawa this week. Some stats from the Federal Court for discussion:

from 2019 to 2024 the number of filings went from 2095 (390 or 18.6% of which were IP-related) to 3521 (289 or 8.2% were IP-related)
in 2019 there were 9 IP trials with 55 trial days, and in 2024 there were 7 IP trials with 54 trial days. So far in 2025, there have been 5 IP trials and 65 trial days.

Federal Court

The Federal Court has updated its FAQ on how to request copies of court documents and now has a dedicated email address for these requests – see FAQ. Some documents are available for download directly from the docket listings – see my docket browser tool.

CIPO

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has announced an infrastructure upgrade and that all e-commerce applications will be unavailable from Friday, March 14 at 4 pm (ET) until Monday, March 17 at 6 am (ET).

Appointments

Darren Thorne, Member, Refugee Appeal Division, at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in Toronto, and Andrew J. Brouwer, Senior Counsel, Refugee Law Office, at Legal Aid Ontario in Toronto were appointed Judges of the Federal Court. Appointments were also made today to the courts in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.