Canadian Intellectual Property Office Publishes Proposal for Increased Fees and Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement

Proposed regulations by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) to adjust fees were published in Part I of the Canada Gazette on December 31, 2022. The adjustments will see fees increase by 25 per cent in most cases, and will be rounded to the nearest whole dollar amount. (The most recent fee adjustments, to accord with the Service Fees Act, resulted in partial dollar amounts that were not generally well-received.) CIPO considers these adjustments as necessary to counter the inflation seen since its last substantive fee adjustments in 2004. The published fee adjustments are responsive to a previous public consultation held in April of 2022.

The fee adjustments are expected to take effect on January 1, 2024, and will not apply to small entity patent applicants. (We note that the definition of “small entity” will also be amended to increase the qualifying number of employees from 50 to less than 100.)

CIPO has published its Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement (“RIAS”) concerning the fee adjustments, and encourages those interested to review the RIAS prior to providing feedback. The consultation will be open to the public until January 30, 2023. Those wishing to provide feedback on the proposal can do so using the Canada Gazette commenting feature, found at the link to the RIAS above, under the heading “Add a comment for the General Comment section.” Any comments provided will be posted online after the comment period closes.