Legislative overhauls, injunctions and patent eligibility in Canada

Managing IP has published a supplement on Canada, looking at some of the biggest issues facing the country’s IP system

Canada is undergoing some profound changes, the most prominent of which is the biggest overhaul of its Trademarks Act in 60 years. Recent legislative tweaks have also been made to the Copyright Act, Patent Act and Industrial Design Act, as well as the Combating Counterfeit Products Act.

In addition to analysing these legislative trends, the supplement also looks at two other important topics in Canada: injunctions in the age of the internet and patent eligibility.

Click on the headlines below to read articles from the supplement.

Some hard Acts to follow

IP practitioners in Canada have had their work cut out keeping on top of the barrage of legislative changes that have come their way in the past two years. Now the challenge is to implement them, reports Michael Loney

Canadian injunctions in the age of the internet

Bradley White, Vincent de Grandpré and Brad Jenkins of Osler discuss what the rise of the internet and the scope for online presence has meant for jurisdictional borders when enforcing IP rights

From antibodies to X-rays: an overview of patent eligibility in Canada

The trend for deciding patentability based on subject-matter eligibility is growing. David Schwartz and Sanro Zlobec of Smart & Biggar look at the situation in Canada, where the relevant jurisprudence remains scant

In addition, further detail was recently given on the implementation of the Trademark Act amendments. It seems these will now occur in 2018, a longer wait than the 2016 or 2017 that the market generally assumed. You can read more on that here.

Since the supplement was published, the final details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have been announced. Look out for our December/January issue cover story for full analysis of the agreement, including the implications for Canada. The story will be published next month. 

The TPP is causing a lot of concerns in Canada. Jim Balsillie, former co-CEO of Research in Motion, has slammed the deal. “I’m not a partisan actor, but I actually think this is the worst thing that the Harper government has done for Canada… I think in 10 years from now, we’ll call that the signature worst thing in policy that Canada’s ever done,” he told The Canadian Press.

A big change for Canada in the TPP would be changing the copyright protection to 70 years from 50 years.

Prominent digital rights blogger and professor Michael Geist has also been critical of the TPP. He says the implications for digital policies on copyright and privacy should command considerable attention.

“On those fronts, the agreement appears to be a major failure,” Geist wrote in a recent blog post. “Canadian negotiators adopted a defensive strategy by seeking to maintain existing national laws and doing little to extend Canadian policies to other countries. The result is a deal that the US has rightly promoted as ‘Made in America’.”