The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has been experiencing significant backlog in trademark applications to be examined. Examination of pending trademark applications has taken over 4 years from the filing date, unless all the goods and services recited in the application are found in the pre-approved list published by CIPO.
Currently, examination of domestic trademark applications using the pre-approved list of goods and services is around eighteen months. However, the pre-approved listing is not comprehensive for all classes. Therefore, it is not always the case that an application can be amended to obtain acceleration without narrowing the goods and services.
Recently, Anil Bhole, Managing Principal of Bhole IP Law, was among a delegation for FICPI Canada that met with various members of CIPO including the Registrar and the Director of the Trademarks and Industrial Designs Branch, during which CIPO has indicated that they have recently hired a significant number of new examiners and intend to significantly reduce the timing of the first examination of Canadian trademark applications that do not use the pre-approved list of goods and services.
CIPO intends to reduce the timing of the first examination of domestic trademark applications that do not use the pre-approved list to one year by March 2026, and there has already been some improvement with the timing of the first examination of such domestic applications in the past several months. This is encouraging news for brand owners, who have not been able to utilize the pre-approved list and accelerate their trademark applications.
There is also an opportunity for Applicants to have us submit suggested goods and services for inclusion in the pre-approved list and we encourage clients to take advantage of this opportunity.
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