The Federal Court of Appeal has published an updated Consolidated Practice Direction along with an accompanying Notice. This updates the 2023 practice direction. Updates were made to the filing of confidential materials, requests for virtual/hybrid hearings, and the discussion of condensed books/day books/compendia.
Tag Archives: Rule Changes
Trademark Regulations
Proposed amendments to the Trademark Regulations are published in the Canada Gazette for consultation. The proposed amendments would allow cost awards, case management and confidentiality orders before the TMOB, as well as would allow CIPO to indicate that an official mark holder is not a public authority or has ceased to exist. The changes support amendments to the Trademarks Act that are not yet in force.
Continue reading Trademark Regulations
Federal Court
The Federal Courts Rules Committee announced a “global review” of the Rules and invited comments on several identified proposals, as well as any other proposals for changes to the Rules by July 2nd. Some of the proposals include updates on electronic service and filing, incorporating elements from the consolidated practice notices, and expand roles of associate judges.
Complex Proceedings
The Federal Court has issued an updated consolidated practice direction “Case and Trial Management Guidelines for Complex Proceedings and Proceedings under the PM(NOC) Regulations”. The notice states that the update includes instructions for subsequent case management conferences and timing for submissions on costs.
PTA
CIPO has an announced a consultation on the determination of additional term if a patent was issued after a threshold date unless, after accounting for days to be subtracted, the net number of relevant days prior to issuance falls below the threshold outlined in the Act. The consultation also considers extension of time for requesting examination, suspension of examination during late payment of maintenance fees and requesting priority and early publication on the same day. The consultation period is open until September 8.
Costs
The Federal Court has published for consultation in the Canada Gazette, proposed amendments to the Federal Courts Rules relating to the costs regime. The proposed changes include: i) separate sections for actions, applications, motion and appeals; ii) only three columns (instead of five currently); iii) additional assessable items; and iv) an overall increase of about 25% to costs awarded under the tariff. The changes also include replacing “Prothonotary” with “Associate Judge” in the Rules. Continue reading Costs
TMOB
CIPO has announced a consultation on Trademark Opposition Board procedures, including costs awards, confidentiality and case management. Continue reading TMOB
CIPO
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.
Copyright Board
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.
Budget Implementation Act
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.