The Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal have issued Notices to the Profession announcing a list of common authorities for patent and trade-mark litigation. Cases on the list are “deemed to be included in the book of authorities” but “if a party intends to refer to one of these authorities, the passage upon which they will rely should be included”.
The Notices to the Profession, (FCA: “Common List of Authorities in Patent Law and Trade-Mark Law” and FC: “Common List of Authorities“) dated today also indicates that “parties should provide a citation to the Common List (e.g., CLA Vol.4-I, Part A, Tab 7).”
The Federal Court (Notice as amended today) already has sets of common authorities for:
- Immigration Law (Volume 1)
- Aboriginal Law (Volume 2)
- Labour Law, Human Rights, Privacy and Access (Volume 3)
Today’s additions are:
- Patent Law (Volume 4-I)
- Subject Matter
- Filing of Prior Art
- Specification
- Novelty
- Inventive Step
- Person Skilled in the Art
- Utility
- Adequacy of Disclosure
- Trade-mark Law (Volume 4-II)
- Confusing
- Clearly descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive
- Claims of Passing Off
- Use
The Federal Court of Appeal website does not seem to mention the first three volumes of common authorities in today’s Notice although the Federal Court originally announced them in early 2012.
I’m sure people will have opinions on the cases which are included and the cases which are omitted. The list includes all of the intellectual property cases on my list of “top cited decisions for 2012” except for those specific to PM(NOC) Section 8 proceedings.