The Trade-marks Opposition Board is planning to amend its practice to:
- Modernise, streamline and more fully clarify and identify the Registrar’s practice in section 45 proceedings, including as it relates to the issuance of section 45 notices, filing of evidence and the scheduling of oral hearings.
- Introduce a new practice whereby the Registrar may, in limited cases, issue a final decision to maintain, amend, or expunge the registration based solely on the evidence filed by the registered owner and without hearing representations from the registered owner or the requesting party.
- Amend the practice with respect to the granting of extensions of time under section 47 of the Act with the intent of streamlining the process to better reflect the legislative intent of the summary nature of section 45 proceedings. Accordingly, the Registrar proposes to amend the practice and generally only grant one extension of time up to 4 months for a registered owner to file evidence.
- Clarify the administrative deadlines set by the Registrar and the inapplicability of section 47 of the Act and amend the practice to generally refuse to grant routine extensions of administrative deadlines for parties to file written arguments and request hearings.
For the full text of the new Opposition Board Practice Notice see:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr01558.html