Trademark costs are moving up again in two important common-law jurisdictions, and the 2026 changes in the United Kingdom and Canada deserve closer attention than a simple fee table comparison. The UK Intellectual Property Office has confirmed that, from 1 April 2026, the online fee for filing a trade mark application will rise from £170 to £205, while the renewal fee will increase from £200 to £245. In Canada, the current CIPO official fee schedule shows that, from 1 January 2026, several trademark-related fees increased under the annual adjustment mechanism, including the online...

Canada’s patent term adjustment (PTA) regime is now a practical post-grant issue for patent owners. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has opened the route for requesting additional patent term where statutory conditions are met, including for patents granted after 1 December 2025. Because the request period is generally tied to a three-month deadline from grant, the first wave of deadline management will become visible in March 2026.The change deserves attention, but not every Canadian patent will justify a PTA request. Owners should first check whether the relevant delay is...

Canada’s response to trademark squatting is becoming more operational. CIPO has recently articulated a more detailed practice approach to “bad faith,” spelling out the kinds of facts the TMOB is prepared to weigh in opposition and invalidity proceedings and making the analysis less abstract than it used to be.The point is not that every broad or aggressive filing will now be branded abusive. The point is that a few recurring patterns are being brought into clearer focus: large-scale filings for marks identical or highly similar to well-known foreign brands, the absence of a genuine...

For applicants entering Canada from the PCT route with an AI system listed as the sole inventor in the international phase, CIPO’s current national-phase guidance, compliance framework and the latest Canadian inventorship position now point in the same direction. A pure AI inventor designation is not going to carry a case smoothly into Canada. If inventor details, entitlement statements or applicant status do not line up with what Canadian law requires, the file is likely to run into a compliance notice before anything else moves very far.The practical importance of this development is...

Canada’s latest public signals on generative AI and copyright are no longer just about labelling synthetic content. The direction is broader: platforms are being pushed away from a pure notice-and-takedown posture and toward a framework built on prior authorisation, transparency and a more defensible approach to remuneration. Across the 2025 copyright consultation summary and the 2026 Canadian Heritage committee report, the same point keeps resurfacing: creators’ ability to consent, be credited and be paid cannot simply dissolve because AI systems scale faster than copyright administration...

As CIPO's public consultation on faster patent examination approaches its June 23 close, the Canadian system is starting to show a much clearer shape. The existing green-technology fast lane is not being displaced. Instead, it has become the reference point for a broader redesign that now puts 2 additional pathways into sharper focus: a fee-based Track 1 ultra-fast program for general applicants, and a no-fee accelerated route for patent applications tied to key technology areas.This matters for more than speed. CIPO is gradually turning acceleration from a simple question of whether an...

Canada’s patentability analysis for AI and computer-implemented inventions is moving into a markedly less forgiving phase. CIPO’s March 2026 Practice Notice put the spotlight squarely on the “physicality” requirement implicit in subsection 27(8) and section 2 of the Patent Act: if a claim merely has a computer process an abstract algorithm in a well-known way, without a discernible physical effect, physical change, or an improvement in the functioning of the computer itself, eligibility risk rises quickly.By late June, practitioner feedback suggests that this is no longer just a policy...

As of 11 July 2026, public materials from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office do not show that CIPO issued final implementation rules on 7 July for a fee-free “Key Technology Areas” fast track or a Canadian Track 1 programme. CIPO’s consultation materials still describe both initiatives as proposals: Track 1 would be a paid, technology-neutral ultra-fast route, while the key-technology stream would offer accelerated examination without an additional fee for priority areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, clean energy and biomanufacturing. A first-action target of...

During the 68th Series of Meetings of the WIPO Assemblies, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) announced a five-year renewal of its Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) arrangement with the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). The renewal preserves a work-sharing route under which eligible applicants may rely on favourable examination results from one office to request accelerated processing before the other. CIPO also signed new cooperation work plans with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the Norwegian Industrial Property Office and France’s...

Recent reports in Canadian and Chinese patent-practice circles have claimed that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) formally launched a no-fee fast-track route for critical technologies and issued final Track 1 rules in early July. CIPO’s current official materials do not support that claim. Both initiatives are still described as proposals: Track 1 would be a paid ultra-accelerated examination service, while the critical-technology route would offer acceleration without an additional official fee for eligible technologies identified by government policy.Practitioners should...