18-year old official mark quashed for not being a
"public authority" TCC holdings sought judicial review of a decision of the
Registrar of Trade-marks to publish the adoption of the use by the
Families as Support Teams Society of the official mark F A S T on
May 1, 1996. The Court looked to whether the Respondent met the test as a
public authority for the purposes of subparagraph 9(1)(n)(iii) of
the Trade-marks Act. The Court noted that being incorporated as a
non- profit corporation with charitable objects, having obtained
tax-exempt status, and having the ability to issue charitable
receipts to donors was in law, was insufficient to constitute that
party a "public authority". There was also evidence of
some money being provided by the government to the organization,
but the sum total of the evidence was not sufficient for the Court
to find ongoing government supervision or significant governmental
control. In the result, the decision of the Registrar to provide public
notice of the official mark was quashed. The BLG Life Sciences Group has published
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Property, Litigation, Corporate Commercial legal trends and
industry developments in Canada. The content of this article is intended to provide a general
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Trade-Mark Cases
TCC Holdings Inc v. Families as Support Teams
Society, 2014 FC 830Industry News