At the Federal Court’s annual town hall held on May 12, 2016, the court provided an update and made some new announcements, including new Case Management Guidelines for NOC Applications.
Patent Volume in 2015
The number of patent applications published in 2015 or that entered national phase in Canada in 2015 was approximately the same as in 2014 at about 33,500 application. Smart & Biggar, Gowlings and BLG top the list of firms by volume of applications.
Trade Secrets
The United States has entered into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act, federal trade secrets legislation. The legislation creates a civil cause of action for the misappropriation of trade secrets.
NPEs
To what extent are non-practicing entities (NPEs – aka patent assertion entities or in some instances, patent trolls) operating and asserting patents in Canada? Please help me by completing a short survey on NPE activity in Canada. I’ll post the results in a few weeks. Thanks to those who have already completed the survey.
IPEGs
The Competition Bureau has released updated Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines. The guidelines are directed to the Bureau’s approach to investigating anti-competitive activities relating to intellectual property including settlements, particularly in PM(NOC) proceedings, price-fixing, patent pooling, product switching, patent assertion entities and standard essential patents.
Marrakesh Treaty
Bill C-11 entitled, “An Act to amend the Copyright Act (access to copyrighted works or other subject-matter for persons with perceptual disabilities)” was introduced today to implement the Marrakesh Treaty.
Design Remedies
The United States Supreme Court has granted cert in Apple v. Samsung on the question of the apportionment of the infringers profits for design infringement.
SCC Dockets
As an add-on to my existing Supreme Court monitoring features, I’m adding the ability to get notifications of individual docket additions for Supreme Court proceedings such as correspondence and filing. Email me if you are interested in being part of the beta-testing group for this feature – you get first access to this feature and can provide feedback on what works or further improvements.
Promise
The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave today in AstraZeneca Canada Inc., et al. v. Apotex Inc., et al. (Esomeprazole), which considers, among other things, the promised utility doctrine in Canada. More details below.
Gene Patents
For those following Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s challenge to the validity of certain gene patents in the Federal Court (T-2249-14 – see earlier post), CHEO has announced a settlement: “the patent holder Transgenomic has agreed to provide CHEO and all other Canadian public sector hospitals and laboratories the right to test Canadians for Long QT syndrome on a not-for-profit basis”.