Our focus on Canada’s trademark landscape

At CompuMark, our goal is to empower trademark professionals to expand and protect strong brands with confidence. This includes helping navigate trademark challenges unique to Canada. From facing new legislation to searching alternative industries like Cannabis, we offer a variety of Canadian-specific trademark solutions and enhancements to support you along the way.

 The revised Trademarks Act and joining the Madrid Protocol

The revised Trademarks Act introduced many changes to trademark law and practice, including Canada’s accession to the Madrid Protocol and as a result, we implemented the following updates to our products and services by:

  • Adding Canada to all regional Madrid packages
  • Including Madrid Protocol information made available by CIPO in CompuMark Full Search reports with a CIPO component
  • Updating Watch services to include Canada under the Madrid Protocol and results under the International Register
  • Incorporating International Registrations claiming protection in Canada in Searches within SAEGIS® and TM go365™

New! Complimentary class predictor for Canada

Prior to this year, CIPO allowed trademark applications to define goods and services in “ordinary commercial terms” rather than using a classification system. However, after Canada joined the Madrid Protocol, CIPO implemented Nice Classifications for all trademark registrations.

To support trademark professionals managing this change, we developed a complimentary class predictor tool that proposes goods and services classes based on a description of the good or service that you wish to research or protect. We updated the class predictor to offer:

  • French models specific for Canada
  • Expanded goods and services classification types including CIPO, Nice and Madrid
  • Class filtering options so you can sort by country, language, standard or class

Expanded common law content

In Canada, unregistered trademarks receive some protection thanks to common law. Meaning, established, unregistered trademarks may prevent your trademark application from becoming a registered mark. That’s why we offer Canadian Common Law searches in addition to our Full Search offerings.

CompuMark now includes Maplandia.com, a geographical dictionary based on Google Satellite map locations, in Canadian Common Law coverage. The new addition joins common law sources like Canada411, WestlawNext Canada, and UrbanDictionary.

Providing cannabis coverage since 2017

Recently, Health Canada published amended Cannabis Regulations expanding the list of permitted cannabis products that can be produced and sold. This change, which legalized edibles, extracts and topicals, is projected to create a $2.7 billion market. Protecting intellectual property rights for these new products is vital as companies race to join the rapidly growing industry.

Since 2017, CompuMark has provided key coverage of the industry to help you protect your cannabis trademarks. This includes extended common law coverage of cannabis goods and services in U.S. and Canada Full Search reports, providing insight against potential infringement or parody within this growing industry.

With the trademark landscape always evolving and quickly, we take great pride in delivering innovations and solutions to help you keep pace with the global marketplace.

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