Upcoming legislative changes in Canada will introduce sweeping
reforms - most notably implementing Madrid and the Nice
classification system in line with international standards.
However, the legislation has a checkered history having been
slipped into a budget bill without consultation and is causing
problems even before it is introduced.
Delays, delays, delays
Implementation of the legislation has been put back multiple
times after it was signed into law way back in 2014. That may
not be unusual with this kind of reform, but the new laws will
remove the need to file Declarations of Use and many applicants
either filed on the basis that proposed use marks would register
without the need to file a Declaration before the three year time
limit to do so ran out, or paid for years of extensions on the same
basis. We're now seeing proposed use applications go
abandoned with the new laws still not in place. Now slated
for 2019, no-one knows quite when they will take
