Big Changes Coming To Canadian Patents When USMCA Replaces NAFTA

Late Sunday night, an agreement was reached to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). This agreement has significant implications for patent and data protection in Canada and is expected to come into force in the second half of 2019. The full text of the USMCA is available here.

First, the USMCA codifies patentable subject matter in Article 20.F.1 to include "all fields of technology" and only certain very specific exclusions are listed (emphasis added):

Article 20.F.1: Patentable Subject Matter

1. Subject to paragraphs 3 and 4, each Party shall make patents available for any invention, whether a product or process, in all fields of technology, provided that the invention is new, involves an inventive step and is capable of industrial application.¹