Some exciting news from Canada... well, if you are a trade mark geek enthusiast that is.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Nu77dTM1CX902er5TEgucf5EFGz6aOMoBpXBfQSE_2XOzSSWlXpD23GXtzNlUOq3K7djjBCZ-gs77j6LdQyEm0V6x96IrqGIs14o0sZVI_4l5umy1gcpnkhyphenhyphen5bWuZSkZTR_j7g/s1600/canwm.gif)
The Canadian government recently introduced what appears to be a rather impressive change to the Canadian Trademarks Act (or should it still state "
trade-mark"); see
here for the underlying bill. The changes appear to include the - long awaited? - adoption of the Nice Classification system for Canadian trade marks and a shorter renewal term of 10 years rather than the current 15 years.
When will it all happen? There are appear to be different views: most likely this autumn (2014) but the connected implenting regulations relating to the Madrid Protocol may only "happen" in 2015. A bit more on the can be found on the website of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office
here.
Canada intends to accede to no less than 3 international treaties - the Nice Agreement, the Madrid Protocol and the Singapore Treaty - courtesy of the Budget Implementation Act which received royal assent on 19 June 2014. Next step is consultation on amendments to the trade mark regulations and anticipated IT changes - no actual changes have been introduced to Canadian trademark law as yet. I cannot see that proposed adoption of the Nice Agreement is long-awaited but it will nevertheless be welcome.
ReplyDeleteThe reduced term of registration (10 years) is to bring this in line with the general position internationally. Finally, please take a look at (the errors in) the second paragraph of your post.