John Norman, PhD
Partner
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Proposed amendments to the Patent Rules, if implemented would introduce excess claim fees above 20 claims and limit the number of office actions to three. The proposed amendments are open for comment until August 2, 2021 and are slated to come into force on January 1, 2022 (with a 30 day transitional period).
The stated rationale for the proposed amendments is to "better streamline the patent examination process, with a view to avoiding unreasonable or unnecessary delays in the granting of patents" in advance of Canada's implementation of the patent term adjustment (PTA) requirement in Article 20.44 of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
Therefore, in order to assist in meeting its obligations under CUSMA, Canada has proposed to amend its Patent Rules to:
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