Our Chief Executive Lee Davies and Deputy Chief Executive Neil Lampert attended the annual conference of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) in September.
CIPA enjoys a close working relationship with IPIC and the visit enabled Lee and Neil to catch up with and thank our Canadian colleagues who had been influential in our successful Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) campaign, in particular IPIC’s retiring President Paula Clancy, incoming President Nathaniel Lipkus, newly elected Vice-President Jason Hynes and Chief Executive Adam Kingsley.
With the accession to the CPTPP requiring the UK to promote harmonisation in international fora regarding a grace period consistent with Article 18.38 (Grace Period), this was an opportunity for CIPA and IPIC to exchange views on their respective countries’ positions on a grace period, particularly within the context of substantive patent law harmonisation (SPLH) and the work of the Group B+ established by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Lee and Neil were also able to be briefed on developments in relation to patent agent privilege in Canada. CIPA wrote a letter to the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry at the Innovation, Science and Economic Development in Canada in support of IPIC’s request for new legislation to clarify the position on legal advice privilege in Canada following the Janssen decision (2021) of the Prothonotary of the Canadian Federal Court, which found that the term “protection of an invention” in the context of s16.1(1) of the Canadian Patents Act should be construed narrowly to exclude infringement advice regarding a third-party patent. The decision throws doubt on the existence of legal advice privilege in Canada for important classes of communications, specifically communications between a client and their patent agent relating to infringement and validity matters.
Another key area where CIPA and IPIC have worked together is professional regulation and it was interesting to have a presentation from Juda Strawczynski, Chief Executive and Registrar of the College of Patent and Trademark Agents (CPATA), created in 2021. Following the presentation, Lee and Neil shared experiences of independent regulation, drawing on CIPA’s establishment of the Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPReg) in 2010. Topics discussed included professional indemnity insurance (PII), competency frameworks and qualifying examinations.
Two IPs at INTA
In May, Lee Davies and Gwilym Roberts took the award-winning Two IPs in a Pod podcast to Atlanta to speak with delegates of the world’s biggest intellectual property conference, the International Trademark Association Conference. The peas recorded several podcast episodes with a range of international organisations, including the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the Intellectual Property Owners Association (US IPO), the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC), and the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA).
Throughout these recordings, they covered topics including the global role of the UK in the patent profession, CIPA’s relationship with other international IP associations, and the hot topic of the year – if there is a place for AI in inventing and patent drafting. There were interesting discussions about the evolving intellectual property landscape in India and the importance of EDI in the world of intellectual property. Check out all the episodes.