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Intellectual Property
Canada
Amendments to Patent Rules come into force
The Rules Amending the Patent Rules have come into force. Section 28 of the Patent Rules has been amended to introduce a procedure for accelerating the prosecution of Canadian patent applications relating to environmental (ie, 'green') technologies. The existing special order procedure has been maintained.
In a recent Federal Court decision a patent was considered invalid for failure to respond in good faith to an examiner's requisition. The court referenced Section 73 of the Patent Act, which states that "application for a patent in Canada shall be deemed to be abandoned if the applicant does not … reply in good faith to any requisition made by an examiner in connection with an examination".
Proposed amendments to the Patent Rules were recently published for public comment in Part I of the Canada Gazette. Although many of the proposed amendments are essentially editorial in nature, they concern at least one matter of substance: the requirement for a 'declaration of entitlement' in a Canadian patent application.
Amendments to Patent Rules Come into Force
A number of rules and regulations governing intellectual property in Canada have recently been amended. The most significant of these changes deal with amendments to the Patent Rules. The key changes affect, among other things, the regime for paying small entity government fees.
A 'Markush' claim recites a group of elements in the very specific form "wherein R is selected from the group consisting of A, B, C and D". Although Markush claims originated in the United States, their use is permitted in Canadian patent practice. However, a recent case suggests that it may be advantageous to avoid them with a view to benefiting from Section 27(5) of the Patent Act.
Amendments to the Canadian Patent Rules, which took effect on March 30 2004, have simplified the manner in which sequence listings are handled in the Canadian national phase of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications, and have partially resolved a significant problem in the Patent Rules.
