New Practice for Canadian Patent Applications—Conditional Notice of Allowance

New Practice for Canadian Patent Applications—Conditional Notice of Allowance

Before October 3, 2022, in some cases, if the patent application has some minor defects before grant, the examiner may have a telephone meeting with the patent attorney and request the submission of proactive amendments to overcome the defects and avoid Issue further review comments.

However, since October 3, 2022, Canadian patent law has introduced a new authorization notice called: Conditional Notice of Allowance. After the applicant responds to the conditional authorization notice, if the applicant still insists that the patent application should not be authorized, the conditional authorization notice will be withdrawn by the examiner, the authorization fee will be returned to the applicant, and the examination will continue. At this time, the needs of the RCE and the number of examination action notices received need to be considered at the same time.