The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) today announced a new consultation regarding a proposed change in practice with respect to the granting of extensions of time in examination.

According to the draft practice notice, CIPO proposes to grant an applicant one extension of time up to a maximum of six months to respond to an examiner’s report, if the request is justified.   Generally, no requests for further extensions of time will be considered.

Upon the expiry of 12 months from the date of the examiner’s initial report, requests for further extensions must provide significant substantive reason(s) to justify a further extension of time, and such reasons must set out why it is not possible to respond to the examiner’s report.  If  at the end of the 12-month period a response isn’t filed or CIPO does not consider the reasons provided justify a further extension of time, a default notice will be issued.  If an applicant fails to file a response within the time specified in the default notice, the application will be deemed abandoned.

This proposed change is consistent with other recent changes that CIPO has introduced (as previously reported here) in attempting to streamline matters related to opposition proceedings and summary expungement proceedings by limiting the opportunities to obtain extensions of time.

Comments regarding this proposed change in practice may be submitted to CIPO (see contact details) by October 30, 2009.