In recognition of the importance of Canada’s knowledge-based economy and of the role played by innovation and growth through the commercialization of intellectual property, the Government of Canada announced the first ever National Intellectual Property Strategy on April 26, 2018. Introduced by Navdeep Bains, the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, the government has agreed to invest $85 million over the next five years, in order to help Canadian businesses, creators and entrepreneurs to harness the benefits of intellectual property.
The Strategy is divided into 3 key pillars, as follows:
1. IP Awareness, Education and Advice;
2. IP Tools for growth by helping business cut the costs and complexity of accessing the Canadian IP system; and
3. Updating IP Legislation.
Under the first prong of the plan, the steps to be taken include establishing a dedicated team of IP advisors for government programs to help businesses improve their IP knowledge, and the establishment of legal clinics to assist small businesses and start ups.
The second branch of the Strategy will include adding additional judges to the Federal Court in order to aid in expedited IP dispute resolution and reducing litigation timelines, creating a a pilot “Patent Collective” and an IP marketplace to allow businesses to easily access IP held by government and universities.
On the litigation front the proposals dealing specifically with copyright and trademark issues include the following. With respect to online copyright infringement matters, in order to avoid potential abuses to the Notice and Notice scheme, the Notice will no longer be able to include any language relating to settlement demands.
With respect to trademarks, changes are proposed to avoid the prospect of trademark squatting which has been feared to be a logical consequence of the upcoming amendments to the Trademarks Act, which will eliminate the showing of “use” as a prerequisite to obtaining a trademark registration in Canada. Since non-use cancellation proceedings cannot be commenced until a trademark registration has been on the Register for three years, this would open the potential for abuse with no mechanism to get rid of the offending registrations for the first three years. The proposal is therefore that it would not be possible for a trademark registration to be enforced during the first three years, without the owner being able to demonstrate use of the trademark in Canada. In addition, the Strategy proposes adding bad faith grounds of opposition and invalidity in order to counter the same potential problems. The precise nature of the requirements and their effect on the enforceability of a trademark are still unknown, but it is anticipated that these changes will take effect at the same time as the new trademark regime.
Finally, a long-awaited College of Patent and Trademark Agents is to be created in order to ensure that professional and ethical standards are maintained.
An outline of the Strategy can be found at the following here. These new steps will serve as an important recognition of the critical role of intellectual property in Canadian business.