Archive for the ‘Foreign Protection’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Trade-marks Act Amendments: Put Down That Glass of Canadian Burgundy!
Monday, January 12th, 2009
On December 31st, while many readers (and writers!) of the Canadian Trademark Blog were likely raising a glass to celebrate the New Year, long-awaited amendments to the Canadian Trade-marks Act quietly came into force. The changes pertain to Section 11.1 of the Act which deals with geographic indications. In particular, the amendments eliminated several terms from a list of wine names that had been deemed generic, and accordingly available for use by anyone, in Canada.
The amendments were motivated by an agreement struck in 2003 between the Canadian government and the European Community concerning trade in wine and spirits. Under the terms of that deal, the Canadian government agreed to amend the Trade-marks Act to gradually eliminate the use of certain European wine and spirit names on Canadian labels, thereby opening the door to European producers to apply for the protection of these names as geographical indications in Canada.
Posted in Branding, Famous Marks, Foreign Protection, Legislation | Comments Off
Red Cross Lawsuit Settled
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
In an earlier post discussing the protection of the Red Crystal in Canada, we noted that the American arm of the Red Cross movement had been sued by Johnson & Johnson over its licensing of the iconic red cross emblem to for-profit companies for use on commercial products.
In a pair of court decisions–one released last November and in a second released in in mid-May–the court dismissed the bulk of Johnson & Johnson’s claims that the American Red Cross could not use the symbol in commercially competitive activities.
On Tuesday, the parties announced that they had settled the outstanding matters in their dispute. Though the terms of settlement were not released, both the American Red Cross and Johnson & Johnson will continue to use the emblem in conjunction with their endeavors.
Posted in Foreign Protection, Protection & Enforcement | Comments Off
Trademark Statistics: The Year in Review
Friday, March 14th, 2008
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office released its 2006-7 Annual Report earlier today. The report contains some interesting information:
- over 45,000 applications were filed in the twelve month period ending March 31, 2007, reflecting a 4% increase over the previous year
- Canada remains the most common country of applicant origin, with nearly 20,000 applications filed; the US placed second, with over 14,700 applications, while applicants from Germany, France and the United Kingdom rounded out the top 5
- 90% of Canadian trade-mark applications were filed online; prior to 2004, only 20% of applicants were using the e-filing system
- despite the addition of several new Examiners, turn-around times remained the same as in the previous year, and an examination backlog of approximately 20,000 files remains to be addressed
- the number of Statements of Oppositions filed continued to decline, with just over 1100 filings; however, the number of Section 45 (cancellation) notices issued increased slightly over the previous year.
The full report is available here.
Posted in Foreign Protection, Protection & Enforcement, Registration, Trade-mark Oppositions | Comments Off