On August 7, 2023, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) announced a significant update to its AI-generated "pre-assessment" letters, indicating that, effective immediately, the letters will identify the particular goods and/or services that may require amendment in order to comply with current Trademarks Office practice standards.
Since early 2022, the Examination Branch at CIPO has been issuing "pre-assessment" letters prior to an application being assigned to an examiner. These letters were intended to provide applicants with a sense of whether their applications are in formal compliance with the provisions of the Trademarks Act and Trademarks Regulations, particularly in respect of the specificity requirements – however, until now, the letters provided no details and simply alerted applicants to the existence of possible problems without explaining what particular goods and/or services might require amendment.
This is a welcome development from CIPO and will hopefully assist applicants and their agents to amend their applications and revise their lists of goods and services to help simplify the process once the applications enter "live" examination.
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