​Paula Clancy is attending INTA’s 2019 Leadership Meeting in Austin, Texas.  This is her last year as Chair of the Public Information Committee, though she is excited to take on a new role in the “Brands for a Better Society” Committee for the 2020-2021 term. 

On November 15, 2019, Paula Clancy joined some 1,350 attendees at the EY Centre for the Children's Aid Foundation of Ottawa's 25th annual World Trivia Night. The trivia-goers answered a total of 100 questions in 10 rounds. 

Paula serves on the Board of Directors Of the Children’s Aid Foundation of Ottawa, an organization that raises funds to support local children and the Children’s Aid Society. Their programs include the Dare to Dream Bursary Program, Camp for Kids, and the Cookie Jar Fund, which enables families to engage in recreational and cultural activities and purchase necessities.
 
Presented by Pat Whalen's Extension Marketing, the event raised over $55,000. This money will primarily go towards the Society's Dare to Dream Bursary Program, as well as towards sending children to summer camp and helping them participate in sports activities.

Read more about the event here.

Three new types of cannabis products have been officially legalized in Canada: Edibles, extracts, and topical lotions.

The gold rush for filing cannabis-related trademarks is well underway. Cannabis companies are actively securing whatever trademarks they can in anticipation of the lucrative new market.

There are, however, tight restrictions in place regarding packaging, how the trademarks can be used, and how the products may be advertised.

To learn more about these and any other restrictions, contact us.

Douglas Stewart, an Indigenous teacher from Moncton, has requested that clothing retailer Urban Planet pull items using the word SAVAGE.
 
Urban Planet was selling orange t-shirts with the word SAVAGE printed on the front.  Keep in mind that Orange Shirt Day is held in honor of Indigenous children who were displaced from their families and sent to Canadian residential schools.  Although the word "savage" is often used as a synonym for "fierce," Stewart noted that the term connotes the subjugation of Indigenous peoples during the colonization of North America.  Accordingly, the use of the word SAVAGE on orange shirts was particularly poignant.
 
Although the orange shirt appears to have been removed from Urban Planet’s website, we found other items displaying the word "savage".

As one author discovered, Toronto's most famous landmark, the CN Tower, is registered as a trademark. Author James Bow received a cease and desist letter from Canada Lands Company Ltd. (CLCL), which manages the CN Tower as a Crown corporation, requesting that he remove an image of the landmark from the cover of his urban fantasy novel "The Night Girl". 
 
Apparently, Bow and his lawyers fired off a response that there was little risk of confusion between his use of the CN Tower on the cover of the book which is set in Toronto, and CLCL’s monetizing of real estate assets. Bow further argued that the Crown corporation is not active in the business of “publishing novels, let alone fantasy novels featuring a strong female protagonist who helps trolls and goblins succeed in the human world through her work at an employment agency.” The Twittersphere seems to be siding with Bow as there have been numerous Tweets in support of the author.
 
Trademark law never ceases to give rise to interesting plot twists. We will continue to monitor this story for further developments.

On October 2, 2019, the Madrid Protocol went into effect in Brazil. Like Canada, Brazil's trademark laws have been undergoing big changes. These include the following:

• The multiclass system
• The co-ownership of trademarks
• The division of registrations and applications

To learn more about the Madrid Protocol, contact us.

Clancy PC is pleased to announce that Paula Clancy has been re-elected to serve on Council for the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC). This week, Ms. Clancy attended the 93rd IPIC Annual Conference in Gatineau, where the theme was “IP Beyond Borders: Canada’s Coming of Age in a Global Economy”.

The fourth edition of the IP Canada Report has been published on the Canadian Intellectual Property Office’s (CIPO) website. The annual report covers statistics in trends in IP in Canada and around the world, and covers some key points:

• Since 2009, trademark applications filed in Canada and by Canadians abroad have increased by over 50%.
• Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) experienced better results regarding growth, financing, and innovation when utilizing IP.

For more information on how trademarks can help your business grow, contact us.

Paula Clancy was one of the Canadian delegates voting for AIPPI’s Standing Committee on Client Attorney Privilege resolution at the AIPPI World Congress in London, England.  Jo Johnson, brother of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was a keynote speaker at the opening ceremony for the Congress.  He noted that the UK is facing considerable turbulence in the face of Brexit but remained confident that the UK would prevail as a key centre for innovation.