The Canadian government is proposing modifications to
the Patent Rules to finally introduce a Patent
Term Adjustment (PTA) system1. The PTA will provide an
additional term for patents for unreasonable delays in their
issuance. The PTA system is an obligation deriving from the
Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that entered into
force on July 1, 2020.
This new PTA system will take effect on January 1, 2025, and it
will apply to Canadian patent applications filed on or after
December 1, 2020 that have suffered unreasonable delays in their
issuance. An unreasonable delay is defined as a delay in issuance
of more than five years from the filing date or three years from
the examination request date, whichever is later, with certain
exclusions.
