Practice Notice

Partnerships and Joint Ventures

Publication Date: 1985-01-02

As a general principle, whenever an application is filed in the name of a partnership or joint venture or an assignment is submitted in favour of a partnership or joint venture it has been necessary to identify each and every partner, in particular both general and limited partners.

Effective immediately the Office will only require that the general partners in a partnership or joint venture be named. The onus of determining whether or not a partnership is a lawful association (legal entity) will rest with the trade mark agent.

Further, in the case of a joint venture, the Office will not require information establishing the degree of involvement by each of the partners named as the Trade Marks Act provides no basis to do so. In the event such information is required in order to disclose the procedure by which the trade mark may be assigned or ownership resolved if the venture is dissolved, this should be dictated by the facts in each case and the documentation submitted at the time of assignment should deal with this question.

The foregoing constitutes an interim practice which will be in effect until such time as the Trade Marks Rules have been amended.