Trademark Law
Trademark Law Solutions - Your intellectual property matters.
At Nexus, we understand that a business’ success largely depends upon on the messages being conveyed and the image being projected. To the extent that a trademark represents a business’ message and image, trade-marks constitute important and valuable business assets.
Our experience extends to creating and managing worldwide-trademark portfolios, licensing and litigating trademark disputes.
We offer our clients a wide range of services, including:
- Registrability and clearance searches
- Validity and infringement opinions
- Preparation, filing and prosecution of trademark applications in Canada and internationally
- Opposition and cancellation proceedings
- Trademark litigation including infringement, counterfeiting, grey-market goods, unfair competition, comparative advertising and personality rights actions.
- Domain name disputes
- Due diligence
- Trademark licensing
More On Trademark Law
A trademark is a word, symbol, design, or a combination of these, used to distinguish the goods or services of one person in Canada from those of others in the Canadian marketplace.
Trademarks are often the primary way that consumers differentiate between the products or services in the marketplace. Consequently, trademarks tend to represent the identity and reputation of the trademark owner, and they are valuable business assets.
A key way of protecting trademarks in Canada is through the registration of the trademark. Registration gives its owner the exclusive right to the use of that trademark for the wares or services for which it is registered throughout Canada. One can register a trademark in block letter form or in combination with a design. Alternatively, a design alone may be registered.
Since trademarks are registered in respect of specified wares or services, a complete specification of these wares or services must be provided in ordinary commercial terms with any application.
Use of a trademark in Canada is achieved if the wares in association with which the mark is used have the trademark marked on them or on packaging containing the wares at the time of transfer of property in or possession of the wares, in the normal course of trade. Normally, use occurs at the time the goods are sold but could also be deemed used at the time of transfer of possession even if the sale occurs later. For services, a mark is deemed used if it is displayed in either the performance or advertising of those services.
How Long Does It Take To Register A Trademark?
Registration of a mark in Canada takes between 1 and 2 years. After an application is filed the application is given an application number. A filing receipt is sent to the Applicant’s agent within about 1-2 weeks after filing of the application. After about 10-14 months the examiner does a search to determine if the subject trademark is likely to be confused with an existing registered trademark or a mark for which application has been made. In addition the Examiner may consider that there are formal defects in the application. All of the Examiner’s objections are set down in an Examiner’s Report and sent to the agent of the Applicant. The Applicant then argues against the objections or amends the application to comply with them. This process may occur more than once. Finally the application is approved for advertisement in the Trademarks Journal. If within 2 months of the date of publication there is no opposition by third parties, the opposition period expires and the application proceeds to registration.