On November 5, 2018, Canada's amended legislation governing
the protection of industrial designs came into force. Among other
things, the new regime enables Canada's accession to the
Hague Agreement, repairs the novelty provisions, and
extends the potential term of protection to 15 years from filing.
Recent commentary on changes to Canadian design law and practice
can be found
here,
here and
here.
Applicants should take note of a subtle yet welcome improvement
to how the grace period is applied. In design law, a 'grace
period' operates to permit an application to be filed after the
applicant has publicly disclosed the design. If the application is
filed within the grace period, a prior disclosure by the applicant
(or a predecessor in title or someone who obtained knowledge of the
design from the applicant) is not considered prior art to the
application and novelty is maintained.
