On April 21, 2015, the Government of Canada, through the
Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Finance, tabled Canada's
federal budget for 2015 (Budget 2015). As part of Budget 2015, the
government plans to modernize Canada's intellectual property
framework by proposing amendments to the Patent Act,
Trade-marks Act and Industrial Design Act to
create a statutory privilege for confidential communications
between intellectual property agents and their clients.
The implementation of this measure through Budget 2015 will
bring Canada's IP framework in line with other common law
countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. As it currently
stands in Canada, confidential communications between
non-lawyer intellectual property agents and clients are
not protected by solicitor-client privilege. Without the protection
of privilege, there may be instances in litigation where
confidential communications between intellectual property agents
and their clients must be
