On 30 October 2019, Bill C-43 – Economic Action Plan 2014,
Act No. 2, came into force in Canada. This resulted in changes to
Canada's Patent Act and Patent Rules. The reason for at least
some of the changes is to align the legislation with the Patent Law
Treaty which Canada has recently ratified.
Further, under the New Patent Rules (the "New Rules"),
certain time periods during which steps must be taken during
prosecution of patent applications have been changed, more
particularly:
- national phase entry in Canada is
still allowable up to 42 months from the priority date of the PCT
application, but the applicant will have to submit a statement to
the Canadian Intellectual Property Office ("CIPO") that
failure to enter the national phase by the 30-month deadline was
"unintentional";
