Delivering quality and timely IP rights is at the core of our business and is our most important priority. In an economy that is increasingly based on intangible assets, timely and quality IP rights give innovators and businesses the certainty and confidence they need to invest in their ideas and bring them to market.
Increasing efficiency while maintaining a focus on quality
Over this past year, we amalgamated our Trademarks Branch and our Copyright and Industrial Design Branch to better serve clients who have portfolios encompassing various IP rights. This approach, practised by many other IP offices, will facilitate the integration of modern work tools and create efficiencies in examination and processing times. We also established new quality procedures and processes for trademark and industrial design examination and increased our quality objectives from 80% to 90% with respect to accuracy in applying the acts, regulations and supporting office practices. Within the next year, we will continue to engage with stakeholders on quality, with the objective of further increasing our examination quality to 95%.
In 2017, our Patent Branch obtained certification with the International Organization for Standardization standard for quality management (ISO 9001:2015). Our certification was renewed in March 2020 after a successful audit of our quality management system. Our Patent Examination Interview Service, which was first piloted in 2017, has now been expanded to all divisions in the Patent Branch. This service facilitates communication between clients and examiners, resulting in faster resolution of issues and better client service. We also identified efficiencies in our work distribution processes that will make turnaround times more consistent for patent examinations across patent fields. For example, we established examiner pools that allow examiners to share their work on, and knowledge about, specific files.
Every day, CIPO receives and processes an average of 1,250 emails, letters and faxes from clients. The Incoming Correspondence Unit was created in 2015 to centralize and optimize the processing of this correspondence for all lines of business. By managing correspondence centrally, CIPO was able to reduce turnaround times for processing incoming correspondence by 85%.
In 2019–2020, we established clear timeliness standards for all services for which we charge a fee and published them on the CIPO website. These service standards reinforce our accountability and increase predictability for clients. Beginning in April 2021, clients will be eligible for a remission of part of their fees if CIPO fails to meet its service standards.
Improving our work tools
In 2019, CIPO launched a new IP document and file management system, a foundational step in improving our operations and equipping employees with the tools they need. This electronic repository system is designed to give our mobile workforce access to documents and give clients electronic access to IP case file documentation. Following this initiative, CIPO established the goal of digitizing its expanding portfolio of 1.8 million trademark files, and 45% of them were digitized by March 2020.
CIPO sends hundreds of letters and emails a day to inform clients of important status changes and deadlines regarding their IP rights. In 2019–2020, our Patent Branch introduced a new tool to fully automate the general letters and notices that are sent to clients, reducing the need to manually create, send and track them. This automation reduces the risk of error and improves operational efficiency while limiting extra costs.
Canada's accession to the PLT in 2019 brought many changes to the procedures and requirements for obtaining a patent. CIPO updated its Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) to reflect these changes and took the opportunity to expand on other administrative aspects related to granting a patent. The revised MOPOP was released a month in advance of the implementation of the PLT, allowing our clients to understand and prepare for the changes before they occurred. Since Canada's accession to the Singapore Treaty, the Madrid Protocoland the Nice Agreement, updates have been made to the existing Trademarks Examination Manual to reflect the changes in our examination procedures. Additional resources, such as the Madrid Examination and Procedures Manual, have also been created for trademarks filed with WIPO for international registration.
Turnaround times
Patents
In 2019–2020, CIPO received 37,999 patent applications and granted 21,005 new patents. In recent years, CIPO has succeeded in reducing patent turnaround times, bringing us in line with our international counterparts. The average turnaround time—the time between a client's request for examination and the moment a patent is granted—was 31.1 months, down from 32 months in 2018–2019 and 33.6 months in 2017–2018.
The Patent Appeal Board provides an independent review of rejected patent applications. In the past year, the Patent Appeal Board received 71 rejected patent applications, down from 101 in 2018–2019. On average, the turnaround time for issuing a decision on an appeal was 30.1 months, up from 24.9 months the previous year. To increase efficiencies and reduce turnaround times, the Patent Appeal Board implemented an action plan, which includes a pilot project where certain rejected applications are reviewed by a single board member instead of 3.
Trademarks
In recent years, CIPO has seen a steady increase in trademark applications. In 2019–2020, we received 68,385 trademark applications, including 14,008 Madrid Protocol applications. This is an increase of 8% from the previous year in the total number of applications filed. CIPO also registered 57,743 trademarks, an increase of 132% from 2018–2019. The higher volume of new applications filed, together with our efforts to improve quality and implement 3 international trademarks treaties, resulted in longer turnaround times for the overall pendency from filing to registration (35.3 months in 2019–2020, compared with 29.8 months the previous year). With the recruitment of new examiners and the introduction of better work tools in 2019, CIPO is positioning itself to reduce the turnaround times and decrease its inventory.
The Trademarks Opposition Board hears cases where an opponent objects to the registration of a trademark or requests that a trademark registration be expunged. In 2019–2020, the Trademarks Opposition Board received 654 oppositions and 702 requests for expungement, which is fewer than the previous year (801 oppositions and 786 requests for expungement). On average, 2.5% of advertised trademarks are opposed, and 90% of oppositions get resolved through settlement negotiations between parties. As for trademark expungements, on average, 90% of those requested are expunged without a formal proceeding because the registered owner does not file evidence of use.
Industrial designs
In 2019–2020, CIPO received 7,408 industrial design applications, including 1,845 Hague Agreement applications. We registered 5,343 industrial designs, a decrease of 4% from 2018–2019. Turnaround times from filing to registration were slightly longer than in the previous year (13.7 months in 2019–2020 compared with 12.7 months in 2018–2019). In the near future, we expect a return to lower turnaround times as we adjust to the new industrial design regime and gain efficiencies from our newly amalgamated Trademarks and Industrial Designs Branch.