The government has tabled five intellectual property treaties in the House of Commons:

• Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (“Madrid Protocol”),
• Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (“Singapore”),
• Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (“Nice”),
• Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (“Hague”), and
• the Patent Law Treaty.

These treaties will likely involve significant amendments to the existing legislation on trademarks, patents and industrial designs.

• Madrid Protocol relates to an international trademark registration system.
• Singapore relates to procedural aspects of registering trademarks
• Nice relates to the classification of trademarks by goods and services
• Hague relates to an internatinal industrial design application process
• Patent Law Treaty relates to procedures for patent applications

For examples of the likely changes to implement these treaties, CIPO has published summaries on the various treaties. See the likely changes to the Patent Act to conform to the Patent Law Treaty, to the Trade-marks Act to conform to Madrid, and to the Industrial Design Act to conform to Hague that may be required.

The treaties were tabled (link to debate) on January 27th by David Anderson, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

According to the government’s policy on tabling treaties, the government will wait at least 21 days before the introduction of the  implementing legislation in Parliament.

(thanks to IPIC’s announcement)