On May 7, 2015, the Government of Canada introduced legislation to amend the Patent Act, Trade-marks Act, and Industrial Design Act. The legislation, Bill C-59, follows a Federal Budget which proposed to modernize Canada’s intellectual property framework to help innovators better protect their IP. The proposed amendments relate most notably to statutory privilege for agents, correction of errors before the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), and extensions in case of force majeure events.
The proposed amendments include greater protection of confidential communications between patent or trade-mark agents and their clients in the same way as communications that are subject to solicitor-client privilege; the authority to make regulations respecting the correction of obvious errors in patent or industrial design documents; and extensions of time limits in unforeseen circumstances.