CIPO Announces New 'After Final' Rules In Force As Of December 28, 2013

Revised Patent Rules concerning Final Action procedures and re-examination proceedings were published in Part II of the Canada Gazette on December 18, 2013, the day on which they came into force.

CIPO will publish a revised Chapter 21 of the Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP), which the Office will follow as the guidelines for practice.

The new 'After Final' rules attempt to give structure to a procedure that has been only informally defined for many years.

Helpfully for applicants, revised Chapter 21 of the MOPOP includes the instruction to Examiners that a Final Action is not to be issued unless at least one non-final action has previously been sent to the applicant in respect of each ground of rejection that is sustained in the Final Action. This instruction may tend to encourage all rejections to be brought forward early in prosecution so that issues may be fully developed in the file history prior to a Final Action. However, although discouragement