On Friday, the US Supreme Court granted review in two IP cases:
The Federal Court has issued an updated Practice Notice on the Court’s “transition back to in-person hearings”. For hearings scheduled in January 2023 and beyond, the presumption will be in-person except for motions scheduled to be heard for a duration of two hours or less, as well as certain IRPA and Citizenship Act proceedings. “The Court encourages parties to all modes of hearings to proceed on the basis of an electronic record” Continue reading COVID Practice Notice
Nathalie Goyette, Partner at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP in Montréal, was appointed a Judge of the Federal Court of Appeal. Judicial appointments were also made today in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Tax Court of Canada.
A couple of developments in Europe that may be of interest: 1) The long awaited United Patent Court is scheduled to open its doors and accept cases as of April 1, 2023; and 2) the EPO is abolishing the “10-day rule” for responding to deadlines, effectively reducing the time available to respond.
Earlier this week, Justice Guy Régimbald, a partner at Gowling WLG in Ottawa was appointed to the Federal Court. Judicial appointments were also made this week to the courts in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Continue reading Federal Court
An order in council published in today’s Canada Gazette has put into force various amendments to among others, the Judges Act, and the Federal Courts Act to change the title of prothonotaries of the Federal Court and Tax Court of Canada from “prothonotary” to “associate judge”. Continue reading Associate Judge
On Monday, the Patent Rules for patent examination procedures were amended to include claim fees for patent applications having more than 20 claims at any point during prosecution, and a request for continued examination after three office actions. Several other procedural changes were made as well.
CIPO has announced that maintenance activities will make several online applications inaccessible for portions of Sunday October 2nd and Monday October 3rd including the General Correspondence application for patents, National Entry Request (NER) Online Solution, Patent Maintenance Fee Electronic Service, Patent E-filing, Industrial Design General Correspondence and Copyright General Correspondence. Patent Rule amendments come into force on October 3rd, including excess claim fees and requests for continued examination, that apply to applications where the request for examination is filed on or after October 3rd.
I will be attending the IPIC conference on September 28-30 and speaking on a panel about IP rights for an AI inventor/creator. Let me know if you are attending as it would be great to connect and reconnect in-person. Continue reading IPIC AGM
I tracked the 42,000 or so patent applications in Canada with a 2001 filing date which all expired by the end of 2021. Only about 17% were still enforceable at expiry but about 30% were in force at the 10 year mark. Overall, about 43% of the original applications (about 18,000) were granted and 118 were litigated in the Federal Court. Continue reading Patent Life Cycle