Amendments to the Canadian Trade-marks Regulations (Regulations) have been drafted to establish procedures for implementing recent amendments to the Canadian Trade-marks Act (Act), introduced in 2014 in accordance with Bill C-31 — Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1 and are intended to facilitate Canada's adherence to three international trade-mark treaties - the Madrid Protocol, the Singapore Treaty and the Nice Agreement.
 
The amendments are also intended to simplify certain requirements, reduce administrative burden for users, clarify communication procedures, and codify existing practices currently governed by Practice Notices.
 
As a next step in implementation, the Trademarks Branch of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) published the proposed Regulations in the Canada Gazette, Part I on February 10, 2018.
 
The Canada Gazette is the official newspaper of the Government of Canada and  is made up of three parts. Part I of the Canada Gazette contains public notices, official appointments and proposed regulations from the Government of Canada.
 
Since the last public consultation on the proposed Regulations in June 2017, there have been only minor amendments to the proposed Regulations, primarily aimed at clarifying the language. For a more in depth discussion of the changes, please read our article discussing them here. 
 
Now that the proposed Regulations have been published in the Gazette, all interested groups have the opportunity to submit comments by contacting the Trademarks Branch of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office: http://www.gazette.gc.ca/consult/consult-eng.html
 
The period for consultation is 30 days (ending on March 12, 2018) and, once the period for consultation is complete, the Regulations will be amended as necessary before being enacted and published in the Canada Gazette, Part II, which the Trademarks Branch is anticipating in the fall of 2018.
 
To support and enact the new Regulations, the Trademarks Branch will also publish a new Examination Manual along with new Practice Notices and other guidance documents, which are expected to be prepared in consultation with the profession over the next year. CIPO also plans to conduct training and education awareness activities to help facilitate the implementation of the new Regulations.
 
After the Regulations have been brought into force and the Examination Manual and Practice Notices are in place, CIPO will be in a position to implement the amended Trade-marks Act, which remains on track to come into force in early 2019.

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