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General
Information
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In order to obtain a filing date
in Canada, no document need be signed by the applicant. In every
case, we as agents can sign all necessary papers required for
a filing date. We shall be pleased to provide copies of requisite
formal documents upon request, but most of them can most easily
be prepared on our office computer and filed directly by ourselves
on the applicant's behalf.
- Any of our offices can handle
a filing on behalf of any of our other offices.
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Please note that it is possible
for our Vancouver and Victoria offices to effect same-day filing
of applications and of prosecution-related documents in the Canadian
Intellectual Property Office. Indeed, because these two offices
on Canada's west coast enjoy a 3-hour time zone advantage relative
to central Canada, we can file patent and trademark applications,
amendments, etc. 3 hours later than can be done in Ottawa, Toronto
or Montreal.
Canadian intellectual property law is generally parallel to the intellectual
property law in other countries, but has a number of features that
are not common to all other countries.
For example,
the United States has a "first to invent" patent system,
whereas Canada has a "first to file" system. Regardless
of who in fact was the first inventor for a given invention, the
first applicant to file a patent application in the Canadian Patent
Office to protect such invention will be granted the patent.
Canada's trademark system is primarily "use"-based;
registration gives a number of important additional rights beyond
those common-law rights generated by use, but use is a prerequisite
to registration. This is in contrast to the law of many civil-law
countries in which rights derive primarily from registration, and
often registration can be obtained without use of the trademark.
Canada's copyright law is in general parallel to the law of
most countries subscribing to the Berne Convention on copyright.
Again, however, there are a number of characteristics of Canadian
law that do not coincide with those of some other countries. For
example, Canada's "fair dealing" defence to infringement
is markedly different from the U.S. "fair use" defence.
See the menu topics on this website for further detail. Our practice
includes the foregoing three fields of law as well as the law relating
to designs, computer software, technology transfer, franchising
and licensing, Internet law and miscellaneous intellectual property
law such as plant breeders' rights, protection of semiconductor
topographies, etc. If the information on this website does not include
information on the topic of interest to you, please ask us for additional
assistance.
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