The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has released its 2010-2011 Annual Report which includes reports on progress on client service, backlog and statistics.

The Annual Report primarily addresses the achievements of CIPO’s goals with regards to its 2007-2012 Strategic Plan. As highlighted in the introduction:

• Client services: To improve products, services and processes in areas of highest priority to clients while supporting the greater public good.
• Outreach: To lead Intellectual property offices (IPOs) in the development of customized Intellectual property (IP) information, tools and services to assist Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in acquiring competitive advantage in the marketplace so that increased IP knowledge and use become measurable factors in their global success.
• IP administrative framework: To improve IP (administrative) policy to benefit Canadians. The IP administrative framework includes legislation, regulations and office practices.
• International: To contribute to the improvement of the worldwide IP system and to benefit Canadians, through influencing international IP administrative policies and practices, and sharing and acquiring best practices and business intelligence.
• Our people: To be recognized as one of the best employers in the Government of Canada.

The Report highlights advances in online services especially for trademark opposition proceedings.

The Report includes numbers for the 2010-2011 financial year. For patents, the number of requests for examination was basically flat with previous years at 30,627 and disposals decreased slightly to 38,235. Interestingly, in the computer related field, the number of application filed decreased slightly from the previous year to 5,758 applications.

For those active in the field, the report mentions that a single integrated circuit topography application was filed, which is up from last year when none were filed.