On 29 January 2020 Bill C-4, which addresses some of the changes required under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), was introduced in the House of Commons. Amendments to the Patent Act were not introduced by Bill C-4 but are expected in the coming years, as Canada must implement the USMCA's required patent term adjustment to compensate for Patent Office delays within four-and-a-half years of the agreement coming into force.
Originally, the USMCA included a requirement for each party to provide a data protection term for biologics of at least 10 years from the date of first marketing approval, which would have required Canada to extend its current eight-year data protection term. However, this requirement was removed during the December 2019 renegotiation of the USMCA (for further details please see "Amendments to USMCA remove 10-year data protection requirement for biologics" and "USMCA amendments: implications for Canadian IP law").(1)
Endnotes
(1) For further information please see "A Step Towards Canadian Ratification of NAFTA 2.1".
