Section 16 of the Trade-marks Act provides three bases for registration of a trademark in Canada: use in Canada, registration and use abroad, and...
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Publications
New top-level domains are coming to a browser near you – how to protect your trademark in view of these changes
As new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) emerge, the Trademark Clearinghouse (“TMCH”), overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), provides a...
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It Just Keeps Getting Harder: Pfizer Faces Further Challenges after its Viagra™ Patent Invalidation
Last November, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) declared Pfizer’s Canadian patent for the drug Viagra™ to be invalid for failing to provide full...
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“Patent Examiner, I think I have a computer problem”: CIPO releases new guidelines for computer-implemented inventions following the Amazon decision
Last year, the Federal Court of Appeal issued a decision on the patentability of Amazon’s “one-click” online shopping patent, in which the Court criticized...
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Promises, Promises…An Old Legal Doctrine Poses Difficulty for Canadian Patentees
The controversial doctrine of the “promise” of the patent has received a great deal of attention recently with some unfavourable decisions for Canadian patent...
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The Copyright Modernization Act: Big Changes to Copyright Law in Canada
A lot happened in the world of Canadian copyright law in the last year. We have already written about the Supreme Court of Canada’s...
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Colour Claims in Canadian Trademark Applications
An application for registration of a trademark in Canada typically does not include a colour claim. A trademark registration without a colour claim generally...
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Patent Prosecution 2.0 – Third Party Submissions of Prior Art
The world is becoming more and more interactive, and the patent world is slowly catching up. Recent changes allow third parties to submit what...
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Choosing a new trademark: It’s all about being distinctive, distinctive, distinctive!
The challenge of choosing a new trademark can arise when you start a new business, rebrand your existing business, or launch a new line...
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From purple candy bar wrappers to red sole shoes: the increasing commercial significance of colour marks
Most trademarks consist of words and/or design elements, but recent decisions demonstrate the increasing importance of colour by itself functioning as a trademark when...
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