TMOB Publishes New Webpage Listing Proceedings Involving Confidentiality Orders And Costs Awards

On October 1, 2026, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) announced the launch of a new webpage that details Trademarks Opposition Board (TMOB) proceedings regarding requests for confidentiality orders and costs awards, including any resulting rulings. This follows legislative and regulatory amendments that came into force on April 1, 2025, and gave the Registrar of Trademarks (Registrar) new authority to rule on requests for confidentiality orders and costs awards in TMOB proceedings (as previously reported by the E-TIPS® Newsletter here).

As of October 19, 2026, the Registrar has granted confidentiality orders in 19 of 29 requests (approximately 65.5%) and awarded costs in 4 of 15 requests (approximately 26.7%), excluding matters that are pending or where the issues were not considered. The Registrar applies a three-part test when determining whether to grant a confidentiality order. The party seeking the order must establish that:

1. court openness poses a serious risk to an important public interest;
2. the order sought is necessary to prevent that risk because reasonably alternative measures will not prevent the risk; and
3. the benefits of the order outweigh its negative effects.

With respect to costs awards, the Registrar may award costs only if a party engages in unreasonable conduct that causes undue delay or expense, or if a party withdraws a request for a hearing less than 14 days before the scheduled date. In opposition proceedings, the Registrar may also award costs where the application is refused on the ground that it was filed in bad faith, or if a party files a divisional application on or after the advertisement date of the original application.

The new webpage contains separate tables for confidentiality order requests and costs award requests. The "Filter items" box can be used to search these tables, and the listed file numbers can be used to locate related documents through CIPO's Trademarks Document Retrieval Service.

The webpage is updated quarterly and can be found here.

Summary By: Uday Bahal