Trademark changes
Daniela Bassan and Divya Subramanian
The Canadian Trade-marks Act will be amended effective June 17, 2019.
As a result, the Act will undergo a complete overhaul on various aspects of trademark prosecution, registration, and enforcement. These changes include:
- Elimination of the “use” requirement in trademark applications
- Expansion of the definition of trademark to cover non-traditional marks
- New administrative process for invalidating an official mark
- New international filings for trademark applications
- Shorter term of registration from 15 years to 10 years
- Introduction of “bad faith” as a basis to oppose trademark applications
These and other changes to IP law were highlighted previously in the article, Proposed Changes to IP Law: Will they impact your business?
Further discussion
Stewart McKelvey’s Intellectual Property Law Group has extensive experience assisting clients to develop, protect and enforce their IP rights. If you would like to discuss the above changes or how they may impact your business, please contact a member of our Intellectual Property team.