Insights

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 paper people cite in seminars. Examiners appear to be applying the framework more consistently in day-to-day prosecution, especially for AI models, software rulesets and data-driven diagnostic methods. Saying that a model predicts better, ranks better or diagnoses better is no longer enough on its own. Applicants are increasingly being pushed to show where the physicality lies and why the claimed invention is more than a bare practical application of an abstract idea.

Federal policy on AI deepfakes took a meaningful step forward in late June 2026. The NO FAKES Act has now moved through the Senate Judiciary Committee process, and the latest text makes clear that Congress is no longer treating unauthorized synthetic voice and likeness only as a niche celebrity problem. The bill is built around a new federal right to control digital replicas of one’s voice and visual likeness, reflecting the U.S. Copyright Office’s repeated conclusion that existing law does not adequately address realistic, unauthorized AI-generated impersonation.

For platforms, the more important signal is structural. The bill does not stop at direct liability for bad actors. It imports a DMCA-like notice-and-takedown framework, adds a counter-notice procedure, and ties online service protections to concrete compliance steps. That means the legal conversation is shifting from abstract AI ethics to operational governance: intake rules, designated agents, response timing, evidence handling, repeat uploads, and restoration workflows. The bill is not law yet, but it is already showing businesses what a future U.S. compliance baseline could look like.

South Africa’s patent reform has moved into a more concrete phase. In late June 2026, the CIPC’s 2026/27 Annual Performance Plan and related public briefings made it clearer that the move to substantive search and examination (SSE) is being handled as a real transition programme, not just a long-range policy idea. The important point is that the pieces are now being pushed together: examination capacity, patent law reform and design law reform are being advanced in parallel.

That changes how applicants should read South Africa. For years, many businesses treated the country as a comparatively fast, registration-oriented jurisdiction where formal compliance mattered more at filing than deep technical scrutiny. That assumption is becoming less safe. The direction of travel is toward a system that tests validity issues earlier and expects stronger filing foundations from the start. For companies active in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, engineering, manufacturing and product design, this is no longer a background policy story. It affects filing strategy now.

The latest signals from WIPO’s 18th session of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement are more consequential than they first appear. WIPO’s official meeting pages confirm that ACE 18 in Geneva devoted substantial attention to digital piracy, intermediary responsibility, online blocking tools and AI-enabled enforcement, while the South Centre’s June 2026 statement argued that IP enforcement must remain development-oriented, proportionate and consistent with TRIPS flexibilities. Read together, those messages point to a sharper political divide over how far copyright enforcement in the digital environment should go.

The African Group’s intervention matters in that context. In the Chair’s draft summary, the Group stressed that enforcement should align with Articles 7 and 8 of TRIPS and balance the interests of right holders with wider social and economic welfare. That may sound familiar in diplomatic language, but the practical implication is direct: a growing bloc of Global South actors is resisting any drift toward platform-driven copyright governance in which technological protection measures, automated filtering and intermediary pressure become a substitute for real legal balancing.

ARIPO’s closing of the qualification stage for its new Learning Management System on 26 June 2026 is more than a procurement update. Read against the organisation’s 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, it looks like a late-stage digital infrastructure move aimed at tightening the operational backbone behind filing, examination support, notifications and member-state coordination.

For applicants and advisers, the practical question is not whether ARIPO will have another platform. It is whether the Office is moving further toward a workflow in which procedural control, document exchange and deadline visibility are handled through a more unified digital environment. That matters because cross-border IP procedure rarely fails in dramatic ways; it usually fails through small administrative breaks that compound over time.

UNECA has sharpened the debate around Africa’s frontier-tech economy. In its 2026 policy messaging on innovation and emerging technologies, the issue is no longer framed as a simple shortage of research activity. The harder point is that too much potentially valuable science still reaches journals, conferences and pitch decks before it reaches a defensible commercialization pathway.

That warning lands differently in Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria, where research capacity, startup activity and investor attention already cluster. For nanotechnology, advanced materials, biotech platforms and energy-transition inventions, the old instinct to publish first and sort out patenting later is becoming expensive. In some cases, it can quietly destroy the very leverage needed to license, finance or scale the technology outside the lab.