In a Practice Notice issued earlier this month, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office ("CIPO") stated that including "wine" and "beer" in descriptions of wares and services will now be considered sufficiently specific to satisfy paragraph 30(a) of the Trade-marks Act. That section provides that an application for a trade-mark must contain "a statement in ordinary commercial terms of the specific wares or services in association with which the mark has been used or is proposed to be used."
This is a favourable development which restores earlier flexibility for those in the alcohol and beer industries following the issuance of the Revised Wares and Services Manual earlier this year by CIPO wherein it stipulated that applicants would have to indicate whether the beer or wine was alcoholic or non-alcoholic.
Applicants are reminded that even though in some instances CIPO has become more flexible in what it considers to be acceptable definitions and even though Canada does not maintain a numbered classification system for wares and services, there remains a fairly restrictive approach to the specification of wares and services in Canada.
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