Canada has seen a number of legislative changes in 2014 and 2015
to its Industrial Design Act, the Plant Breeder's
Right's Act and the Patent Act. In addition, a
Practice Notice related to the Examination of medical diagnostic
applications was released by the Canadian Intellectual Property
Office (CIPO) in summer 2015, greatly altering the examination
procedure and scope of claims that will be allowed by the patent
office for diagnostic innovations. A brief synopsis of some of the
key changes follows.
Amendments to Canada's Industrial Design
Act passed December 2014 have yet to come into force.
The amendments introduce changes to registration criteria to bring
the Act in line with the Hague Agreement, which allows an applicant
to obtain industrial design protection in member states on the
basis of a single application. The amendments remove the
requirement for originality, introduce a novelty requirement, allow
for multiple designs in a single application, and
