CIPO recently announced proposed amendments to the Trademarks Regulations in anticipation of both reducing the operational costs for businesses and increasing the overall effectiveness of trademark opposition procedures.
These proposed changes reflect Canada’s efforts to modernise and streamline its trademark opposition regime. The aim is also to keep up with international standards and trading partners, such as the European Union and Australia, which are also considering ways to improve and streamline their respective opposition regimes.
One of the key proposed amendments concerns filing electronic evidence. Given the increased use of electronically transmitted documents and the acceptability of filing electronically with other Canadian courts and tribunals, such delivery may be equally acceptable in opposition proceedings.
The proposed e-filing requirements would facilitate filing documents such as electronic sworn affidavits or solemn declarations, provided that they are consistent with the rules of the Federal Court of Canada and the practices of other Canadian tribunals.
The rest of this article is locked for subscribers only. Please login to continue reading.
If you don't have a login, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content. Please use this link and follow the steps.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription to us that we can add you to for FREE, please email Atif Choudhury at achoudhury@worldipreview.com
CIPO, Trademark Regulations, amendments