Those who have applied for, or are looking to apply for, industrial design protection in Canada should be aware that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has updated its Industrial Design Office Practice Manual (IDOP) for clarity and to better reflect current office practice. The IDOP is the main source of information on how to prosecute an industrial design application and therefore these updates should serve to make the prosecution process clearer and smoother for applicants and their agents.

In particular, the IDOP has been updated to re-organize the section about “Communications with the Industrial Design Office” and to clarify or revise sections related to the appointment of agents, third-party correspondence, designs applied to sets, withdrawal requests for Hague applications, and corrections of Hague registrations.

The updated IDOP was published on 19 June 2025 and can be found here. A detailed summary of the updates can be found here.