In 2014, Canada’s patent law was amended to implement
Canada’s obligation under the Patent Law Treaty (PLT). The
final amendments to both the Patent
Act and Rules came into force on October
30, 2019 (CIF).
Many of the provisions of the PLT are intended to make the law
and procedure more forgiving, e.g. by reducing the minimum
requirements necessary to file a patent application and obtain a
filing date, and by ensuring that whenever some action is missed, a
patent Applicant or Patentee is given some form of notice and/or an
opportunity to make a correction. An unfortunate effect of
implementing the obligations under the PLT is that many of the
provisions in the Patent
Act and Rules have become more
complex. Timelines for making some corrections are shorter,
calculation of due dates is more complex, and new concepts of
“due care” and omissions being
”unintentional” have been introduced, with the exact
scope of these concepts not yet clear.
