Category Archives: CIPO

Major Update of the Canadian Government Login Process for Businesses

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The Canadian government finally seems to have realized allowing individual agencies to create and manage credentials individually, for each business that may want to interact with governmental online services, simply does not make sense, including from a cybersecurity standpoint. Starting soon, users who want to login will have to go through a whole new system.

CIPO (the Canadian Intellectual Property Office) recently started offering information and training on the upcoming changes, so as to allow businesses to make the transition, including those that may need to interact with I.P.-related services, for example as to patents, trademarks or industrial designs.

The new system being deployed by the Canadian government will do away with ISED, the former system whereby businesses could create user IDs to login and interact with governmental online services.

The new identification process will involve each business creating an ID (called the GCKey) to which authorized individual users will have to be linked. The system will also require individuals to go through identification and authentication, to make sure they are the actual individual they purport to be and that they are indeed authorized by the organization at issue. Though you may think this was already the case, it was not.

One offshoot of this new method of allowing access by users on behalf of their organization is that it will do away with the sharing of credentials. Once implemented, it will no longer be possible for all users of an organization to “share” a single user ID (account), as was so frequently until now, for purposes of accessing governmental online services.

The new system will also force all user to use 2-step verification to login into their online account, also something most large organizations have been requiring for a while now. The actual implementation of the changes start March 28.

CIPO Ends Regional Courier Services Counters

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The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO“) recently elected to abandon its practice of allowing third parties, such as applicants and agents, to send correspondence and documents through regional counters, considered until now as “Designated Establishments”.

This change will be effective August 16, 2021.

Until now, those who needed to exchange with CIPO otherwise than by fax or electronically, could avoid having to resort to mailing stuff, by visiting a counter in certain major Canadian cities (e.g. Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, etc.), in order to hand-in their documents. This will no longer be possible, once this change comes into effect.

This may happen, for example, to documents and evidence to be submitted in opposition or Section 45 proceedings which may not be sent by fax, due to the limitations of this antiquated technology. From now, if it gets to that, CIPO will expect use of registered mail or the like to send-in your documents.

On the bright side, CIPO is providing us with more and more links and forms which may now be used to communicate electronically and, hopefully, having to resort to obsolete means such as the fax and the mail.

Canadian Trademarks Office Updates Rules on Refusing Extensions of Delays

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According to a new practice notice published by CIPO this week, the Trademarks Office (the “TMO“) will no longer grant extensions, as a matter of course, when an applicant needs more than 6 months to respond to an examination report.

As you may remember, until now, the TMO allowed applicants to request one (1) extension of delay, without having to show cause or provide any sort of real explanation. This allowed applicants to get 12 months to respond to the report of an examiner who objected to the registration of the mark at issue. From now, however, the TMO will require applicants to show the existence of “exceptional circumstances” if they want to obtain such an extension. No more of those quasi-automatic extensions, if you will.

No doubt tired of being stuck with average registration delays that we can’t seem to get under control, CIPO basically decided to opt for the homework approach: if the teacher gives you until Friday, you have until Friday -or the dog better really have eaten your homework.

The notice repeats some previously published typical examples of what may be considered “exceptional circumstances”, adding that the concept will apply not only to responding to office actions from an examiner, but also to cases where the TMO is asking a registrant to classify the goods/services associated with his/her/its trademark according to the Nice classification.

Interestingly, the notice also explains (as a similar notice did last year) that, due to a technicality, applicants should note that no governmental fees will generally be payable to request an extension to respond to an examiner report, as the delays at issue are not technically provided by the statute or its regulation. Good to know.