The budget implementation bill, C-19 received royal assent yesterday. It includes some IP-related changes:
measures directed to the term of copyright including “6. Except as otherwise expressly provided by this Act, the term for which copyright subsists is the life of the author, the remainder of the calendar year in which the author dies, and a period of 70 years following the end of that calendar year” (Division 16);
changes to the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents Act (Division 17); and
replaces the term “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge” for the Federal Court (Division 22).
The Federal Court issued public reasons for judgment in Rovi Guides v. Videotron,2022 FC 874. The Court found the four asserted patents invalid for being obvious and/or anticipated and accepted non-infringement defences advanced by the defendant, Videotron. If there had been liability, the Court concluded that the Plaintiff would not have been entitled to an accounting of profits and a design-around cost would have been a reasonable upper bound for any royalty. Videotron was represented by a team from DLA Piper including Bruce Stratton, Alan Macek, Michal Kasprowicz, Gabriella Levkov and Nicole Nazareth.
The following private member bills were introduced on Friday:
C-292 “Online Algorithm Transparency Act” directed to ensuring that algorithms used for “moderating content … do not result in adverse differential treatment of any individual or group of individuals based on one or more prohibited ground of discrimination”
C-294 “An Act to amend the Copyright Act (interoperability)” directed to expanding the interoperability exception in 41.12 to devices in which software is embedded and to products used to provide interoperability.
Proposed Rules of Practice and Procedure for the Copyright Board have been published for consultation. The rules address notices of grounds within 7 days of filing a tariff proposal, joint notices of issues, case management, electronic documents and interveners, and would apply to new and existing proceedings.
The Federal Court has issued an updated consolidated Practice Notice dated June 8, 2022. The practice notice consolidates and replaces earlier notices on such issues as informal requests for interlocutory relief, early requests for a hearing, books of authorities, addressing costs at hearings and the appearance of articling students at hearings. Continue reading Federal Court→
Amendments to the Patent Rules have been registered and will come into force on July 1st for amendments related to sequence listings, and October 3, 2022 for other amendments to “streamline examination’, including excess claim fees and requests for continued examination. The changes will include a $100 per claim fee for applications with more than 20 claims (see new section 80), and a fee for continued examination after three office actions equal to the original examination fee (see section 85.1). The amendments also add steps such as ‘notices of conditional allowance’. Continue reading Patent Rules→
Bill C-19, “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures” includes
measures directed to the term of copyright in Division 16 including “6. Except as otherwise expressly provided by this Act, the term for which copyright subsists is the life of the author, the remainder of the calendar year in which the author dies, and a period of 70 years following the end of that calendar year”;
changes to the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents Act in Division 17; and
replaces the term “prothonotary” with “associate judge” in Division 22.