CIPO Introduces Updated Industrial Design Office Practices

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) introduced significant changes to its Industrial Design Office Practices on November 12, 2004. CIPO indicated that the changes have been made in conjunction with a stakeholder group, the Partnership Committee on Industrial Design, and were developed in order to simplify the application process and improve response times and volume. The new practices make some significant changes to the former examination guidelines, including allowing applicants greater flexibility regarding titles and time extensions, imposing a requirement that articles be shown as fully-assembled and not as kits, and imposing a stipulation that variants now must be very similar. CIPO also released industrial design practice notices in early December on colour, size, and quality requirements, environment, and prior art searches. These practice notices give some indication as to how the examiners might exercise their discretionary authority. Among other things, the notices indicate that CIPO will no longer object to colour drawings and photographs or drawings in environmental context, subject to specific caveats. For a more extensive article on the updates to the Industrial Design Office Practices, visit: http://dww.local/?page_id=1015. For the full text of the Revised Industrial Design Office Practices, see: http://idop.notlong.com. The Practice Notices on Colour, Size, and Quality Requirements, Environment and Prior Art Searches can be found here: http://idop2.notlong.com. Summary by: Jason Young