IPIC Patent Committee Meeting with CIPO: Key Updates on MyCIPO Patents Transition and Service Delays

Members of the IPIC Patent Committee met with representatives from CIPO on August 8, 2024, to discuss the MyCIPO Patents transition. Updates from the meeting include:

• As of August 8, 2024, approximately 500 national phase entries have been filed and 17,000 maintenance fees have been paid via MyCIPO Patents.
• A technical bug has been delaying most outgoing correspondence (other than Examiner’s Reports). The same technical bug has delayed the issuance of patents. The technical bug has been identified and is being corrected. Patent grants and other outgoing correspondence should be forthcoming soon, possibly as early as next week, although it will depend on the success of testing early next week after the correction is fully deployed. CIPO could not provide a date yet, but will provide an update to IPIC next week.
• IPIC stressed the importance of timely granting of patents and the ability for patentees and their agents to know the projected grant date in advance, e.g. for the purposes of listing the patent on the Health Canada Patent Register. We will continue to follow-up with CIPO on this point.
• CIPO will shortly publish changes to their patent service standards. Many service standards for operational steps will be temporarily doubled from 9 weeks to 18 weeks to reflect the delays they are currently experiencing in processing incoming correspondence during this transition period. Service standards related to actions of Examiners (e.g. time between request for examination and first Examiner’s Report) are not impacted. These temporary changes are relevant to the issuance of remissions under the Service Fees Act.
• Examiners have been continuing examination of patent applications during the transition to NGP and MyCIPO Patents, but CIPO has imposed a limit on outgoing examination correspondence to spread out the sending of Examiner’s Reports, to avoid a large spike of outgoing correspondence on any given day. No adjustment to CIPO’s performance targets (rather than service standards) relating to examination are contemplated.
• Processing of incoming correspondence is backlogged. This is expected to be temporary. Rather than processing incoming correspondence in the order in which it is received, CIPO is deploying a triage system that will prioritize uploading incoming correspondence deemed to be higher priority. Staff at CIPO are also still becoming comfortable with the new system and are processing more incoming correspondence each day.
• IPIC asked CIPO to share any list of priorities they have, e.g. what incoming correspondence they consider to be highest priority, their priority list for enhancements to MyCIPO Patents, etc. Members of the IPIC Patent Committee will review and provide feedback to CIPO in relation to any priority lists received.

CIPO agreed to more regular communication updates in the coming weeks.