DID YOU KNOW? THE MADRID PROTOCOL IN CANADA.
This may come as a surprise to most foreign trademark filers using the Madrid system to designate Canada, but the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) will ONLY send correspondence to the applicant or an appointed Canadian trademark agent. This is in accordance with the new Trademarks Regulations which came into force on June 17, 2019.
In consequence, CIPO is not required to send all the WIPO correspondence to the foreign agent.
CIPO however, will issue a courtesy letter to the foreign representatives informing them that all future correspondence will be sent only to the applicant or appointed Canadian trademark agent. Therefore, some important correspondence such as approval notices, examiner’s reports (except for the first report), defaults and refusals will only be sent to the applicant if no Canadian agent is appointed.
We strongly recommend appointing a Canadian agent at the outset. In addition, the Canadian agent will be able to docket and follow the registration procedure and intervene, if need be.