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Glossary of Intellectual Property Terms
- Abandonment
- An application for trade-mark or copyright
registration may be considered abandoned if the
applicant does not take steps to complete the process. An application for
Industrial design will be considered abandoned if the applicant fails to reply
within the specified time to any report that sets out objections to
registration.
- Abstract
- A brief summary of an invention.
- Abuse of Patent
- Abusing one's patent rights
by failing to make one's invention commercially available in Canada without
adequate reason.
- Advertisement
- Publication of a
trade-mark application in the Trade-marks Journal. Details are published
to allow opportunity for challenges to the application
(opposition).
- Allowance
- Acknowledgement by the Trade-marks Office
that an application is eligible for registration.
The applicant receives a "Notice of Allowance" (not the same as "Certificate of
Registration").
- Application
- The formal request for registration of intellectual property.
- Artistic work
- Any visual representation such as a painting,
drawing, map, photograph, sculpture, engraving or architectural plan.
- Assignment
- Transfer of intellectual property rights from the
owner to another party.
- Author
- The creator of an artistic, literary, musical or
dramatic work.
- Berne
Copyright Convention
- An international treaty extending
copyright protection in member countries to nationals
of other member countries. Canada is a signatory to this treaty.
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO)
- Federal agency responsible for the administration
of intellectual property laws (includes Copyright Office).
- Canadian Patent Database
- Allows a preliminary
search via the internet of the bibliographical information on issued
patents and applications made public in Canada since
1920.
- Canadian Patent Office Record
- The Canadian Patent
Office Record is a weekly publication that contains various important
notices and information on newly issued patents, laid-open applications, Patent
Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications entering the national phase, and patents
that are available for licence or sale.
- CANCOPY
- A reprography collective that grants licences to
photocopy works and collects fees on behalf of its members.
- Certificate of registration
- Official confirmation that your design, copyright or
trade-mark has been registered.
- Certification marks
- Marks identifying goods or services meeting a
defined standard (e.g., Wool Mark on clothing).
- Claims
- The basis for filing an application that allows for
the determination of the person entitled to the registration of the mark.
- Clearly descriptive
- A mark that clearly describes a feature of a
ware or service and that is therefore not registrable as a
trade-mark.
- Collective
- Organization that administers rights granted by the
copyright system on behalf of copyright owners who
have joined that collective.
- Compulsory licence
- The right granted by the Comissioner of
Patents to one or more parties to produce a patented
invention. These are granted under certain circumstances as a measure against
abuse of patent rights.
- Copyrights
- Provide protection for literary, artistic,
dramatic or musical works,computer programs, and sound recordings.
- Copyright Act
- Federal legislation governing copyright in Canada.
- Copyright
Board of Canada
- A tribunal that reviews and must approve all
tariffs and fees proposed by the SOCAN, the Canadian performing rights society. The Board can
also set royalties when asked to do so by either a collective or a user of a
collective's repertoire.
- Copyright infringement
- Violation of copyright
through unauthorized copying or use of a work or other subject matter under
copyright.
- Copyright Office
- The federal government office responsible for
registering copyrights and agreements affecting a
copyright in Canada.
- Crown copyright
- Copyright of works
prepared for or published by the government, i.e., government
publications.
- Deceptively misdescriptive
- A mark that deceptively misdescribes a
feature of a ware or service in such a way as to potentially mislead the
consumer is not registrable as a trade-mark.
- Declaration
- Formal statement that you are the
proprietor of the design and that, to your knowledge,
no one else was using the design when you created it.
Copyright:Formal statement that the applicant is the author, the owner
of the work, an assignee or a person to whom an interest in the copyright has
been granted by licence.
- Description
- A description is a basic requirement of an
application for an industrial design. It
identifies the features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament that
distinguish the design, and indicates whether the design resides in the entire
article or a portion.
- Design patent
- The term used in the United States to describe a
form of protection similar to that of industrial
design protection in Canada.
- Disclaimer
- A statement that the applicant does not claim
exclusive rights for a portion of the trade-mark.
- Distinguishing guise
- The unique shape of a product or package that
can be registered as a trade-mark.
- Dramatic work
- Includes plays, screenplays, scripts, films, videos
and choreographic works as well as translations of such works.
- Drawings
- Drawings (or photographs) disclose the
industrial design and are a basic requirement
of a design application.
- Examination
- Trade-marks : The process through which
the Trade-marks Office determines whether an application for trade-mark is
registrable.
- Industrial Designs : The process
through which the Industrial Design
Office determines whether a design warrants registration. The main objective is to determine
whether the design is indeed design subject matter, that it is original, and
that the documentation meets the requirements of the Acts and
Rules.
- Exception : A provision in a copyright
law permitting the use of a work by defined user groups without the consent of
its creator or without the payment of royalties, conditions that would normally
constitute an infringement of copyright. Examples of user groups benefitting
from exceptions are educational institutions, libraries, museums, archives and
persons with a perceptual disability.
- Fair dealing
- Use of works for purposes of private study,
research, criticism, review or news reporting that does not constitute
infringement of copyright.
- Fees
- Specific sums payable for various services provided by CIPO.
- First to file
- A patent system in which the
first inventor to file a patent application for a
specific invention is entitled to the patent. In Canada and in most other
countries, the first person to file has priority over other people claiming
rights for the same invention.
- Industrial design
- The visual features of shape, configuration,
pattern or ornament applied to a manufactured article. Registration provides protection against imitation and
unauthorized use of the design.
- Industrial
Design Act
- Legislation governing registration and ownership of
industrial designs in Canada.
- Industrial Design Office
- The federal office responsible for
registration of industrial designs.
- Infringement
- Industrial Design: Violation
of industrial design rights through
unauthorized use of a design.
- Trade-marks: Violation of
trade-mark rights through unauthorized use of a trade-mark.
- Patents: Making, using or
selling an invention protected by a patent without the
inventor's permission.
- Integrated circuit topography
- a) The three-dimensional configuration of the
electronic circuits embodied in integrated circuit products or layout designs.
- b) Legal protection against imitation of this configuration.
- Intellectual property
- A form of creative endeavour that can be
protected through a trade-mark, patent, copyright,
industrial design or
integrated circuit
topography.
- Literary work
- Work consisting of text such as novels, poems, song
lyrics without music, catalogues, reports, tables as well as translations of
such works. It also includes computer programs.
- Licence
- Legal agreement granting someone permission to use
a work for certain purposes or under certain conditions. A licence does not
constitute a change in ownership of the copyright.
- Licensee
- If an entity is licensed by or with the authority
of the owner to use the mark, and the owner has direct or indirect control over
the character or quality of the wares or services with which the mark is used,
then the licensees use of the mark or a trade-name including the mark is
deemed to have, and to always have had, the same effect as use by the
owner.
- Licensing a design
- Granting of an exclusive licence from the owner of
the design to another party that allows said party to manufacture, use and sell
the design, and to sub-licence others to do so.
- Licencing an invention
- Allowing a business or individual to manufacture
and sell an invention, usually in exchange for royalties.
- Maintenance fee
- Industrial design: Fee
required in order to maintain the rights to an industrial design for a second five-year period
for designs registered after January 1, 1994.
- Patents: Annual fee to keep
a patent (or applications on
patents filed or issued after October 1, 1989.) in good standing.
- Marking
- Copyrights: Indicating
copyright with a small "c" in a circle (©), the
name of the copyright owner and the year of first publication.
- Industrial design: Signalling
that a design is registered by placing a capital "D" in a circle along with the
name, or abbreviation thereof, of the design's proprietor on the object to which the design has been
applied, or to its label or packaging.
- Trade-marks: Canadas
Trade-marks Act does not contain any marking requirements. However,
trade-mark owners often indicate their registration
through certain symbols, such as R in a circle (registered), TM (trade-mark), SM (service mark), MD (marque
déposée) or MC (marque de commerce). (See Guide to Trade-marks
for more information on marking.)
- Moral rights
- Rights an author retains over the integrity of a
work and the right to be named as its author even after sale or transfer of the
copyright.
- Musical work
- Work that consists of music plus lyrics or music only.
- Nom-de-plume
- A name used by a writer instead of his or her real name.
- Opposition
- The process whereby members of the public may
object to the granting of a trade-mark registration
if they have valid grounds for doing so.
- Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial
Property
- An international treaty on intellectual property signed by some 90 nations, including Canada.
- Patent
- A government grant giving the right to
exclude others from making, using or selling an invention.
- Patent
Cooperation Treaty
- An international treaty providing for standardized
filing procedures for foreign patents in the countries
that have signed the treaty.
- Patent examiner
- An official with technical expertise charged with
the task of classifying a patent or an
application, or of determining whether a patent
application fulfills the requirements for a grant of patent.
- Patent Office
- Canada's patent granting
authority and disseminator of patent information.
- Patent Office
Action
- An official written communication by the
Canadian Patent Office on the merits of an
application.
- Patent pending
- A label sometimes affixed to new products informing
others that the inventor has applied for a patent and
that legal protection from infringement (including retroactive rights) may be
forthcoming.
PCT Sequence Listing Standard
- The Standard for the Presentation of Nucleotide Amino Acid Sequence Listings in International Patent Applications under the PCT provided for in the Administrative Instructions under the Patent Cooperation Treaty.
Performers and producers rights
- A term used to indicate rights of performers and
sound recording producers to be remunerated when their performances and sound
recordings are performed publicly or broadcast. Also referred to as
"neighbouring rights".
- Performing Rights Society
- An organization that administers rights to perform
musical works on behalf of composers, lyricists, songwriters and music
publishers. (See SOCAN.)
- Plagiarism
- Using the work (or part of it) of another person
and claiming it as your own.
- Posthumous work
- A work that is published for the first time (or,
for certain types of works, published, performed or delivered in public for the
first time) after the author's death.
- Preferred Embodiment
- An explanation, in a patent application, of the most appropriate and useful
practical applications of an invention.
- Prior art
- Industrial
Design : The body of registered industrial designs or other published
designs including catalogues, manuals and other publications throughout the
world relevant to the application for registration
of a design.
- Private copying
- Copying of pre-recorded musical works, performers'
performances and sound recordings into a blank medium, such as audio tape or
cassette, for personal use.
- Private Copying Levy
- An amount of money established by the Copyright
Board on blank recording media, whether made here or imported, by manufacturers
and importers and is then sold in Canada redistributed to eligible composers,
lyricists, performers and sound recording makers through their professional
associations and collectives.
- Prosecution
- All the steps involved in completing a patent
application.
- Proprietor
- The proprietor of an industrial design is the owner of the design. This
can be the person who created it or who paid to have it created or who bought
the design rights from the original owner.
- Publication
- Making copies of a work available to the public.
The construction of an architectural work and the incorporation of an
artistic work into an architectural work are
considered publication.
- Plant
breeders denomination
- A plant variety denomination is a right that
is granted to the owner for the control over the multiplication and sale of
reproductive material for a particular plant variety.
- Place of origin
- A word or depiction that designates the origin of a
product or service and that therefore may not be registered as a
trade-mark.
- Preliminary search
- The search of Trade-marks Office records that
one should undertake before submitting an application for trade-mark registration. The search may turn up conflicting
trade-marks and show that the application process
would be in vain.
- Pre-publication verification
- A second search of Trade-marks Office records to
ensure that no confusing trade-marks exist before a
given application is published in the Trade-marks Journal.
- Prohibited marks
- Marks that are specifically prohibited from use as
defined in section 9(1) of the Trade-marks
Act
- Proposed use
- A statement indicating intention to use a
certain trade-mark and how that use will
occur.
- Protected geographical indication
- A geographical indication is an indication
that identifies a wine or spirit as originating from a territory where a
quality, reputation or other characteristics of the wine or spirit are
essentially attributable to its geographical origin and that is listed on the
List of Geographical Indications kept by the Registrar.
- Registration
- The granting of formal recognition of a
trade-mark, copyright, industrial design, or integrated circuit topography by
the Trade-marks, Copyright, and Industrial Design Office
respectively.
- Registered Patent Agent
- A specialist entitled to prepare and prosecute
patent applications.
- Registered trade-mark
- A trade-mark
entered on the federal governments Trade-marks Register, which formally
recognizes the owners rights to the mark.
- Registrar
of Trade-marks
- The official responsible for the Canadian
Trade-marks Office.
- Registrar
of Copyrights
- The official responsible for the Canadian
Copyright Office.
- Registrar
of Integrated Circuit Topographies
- The official responsible for the Canadian
Integrated Circuit Topography Office.
- Renewal fee
- Industrial designs: Fee
required in order to renew the rights to an industrial design for a second
five-year period for designs registered prior to January 1, 1994.
- Trade-marks: Fee required in
order to renew a trade-mark registration for an
additional fifteen-year period.
- Representative for service
- A person in Canada appointed by the applicant or
registered proprietor to receive documents on his/her behalf.
- Rome
Convention country
- A country that is party to the international
convention for the protection of performers, producers of phonograms and
broadcasting organizations done at Rome on October 26, 1961.
- Royalty
- A sum paid to copyright
owners for the sale or use of their works, or other subject matter.
- Search
- The act of searching through intellectual property
records in order to verify whether a patent,
trade-mark or industrial
design has been previously filed or registered.
- Sequence Listing
- Has the same meaning as in the PCT sequence listing standard.
- Small entity
- In respect of an invention, means an entity that employs 50 or fewer employees or that is a university, but does not include an entity that:
- is controlled directly or indirectly by an entity, other than a university, that employes more than 50 employees; or
- has transferred or licensed or has an obligation, other than a contingent obligation, to transfer or license any right in the invention to an entity, other than a university, that employs more than 50 employees.
- SOCAN
- The Society of Composers, Authors and Music
Publishers of Canada. SOCAN is the only performing rights society in Canada.
- Sound recording
- A device which produces sounds, such as cassette,
record, or CD player.
- Special
Order Examination
- A request to the Patent Office for early consideration
of a patent application.
- Specification
- Part of the patent application. It includes a detailed description of the
invention, claims specifying the aspects of the invention
for which protection is sought, and the extent of the protection being
sought
- Tariff
- A standard charge for use of copyrighted works.
Usually applies to fees paid by users of musical works and cable companies for
the rebroadcast of programs.
- TechSource
- TechSource is an electronic patent system that holds the scanned images of over 1.3
million patent documents dating back to 1920 and the text version of patent
documents from 1978.
- Trade-mark
- A word, symbol or design, or combination of
these, used to distinguish the goods or services of one party from those of
another.
- Trade secret
- Information about a product or process kept secret from competitors.
- Trade-mark agent
- A trade-mark agent is a person whose name is
entered on the list of trade-mark agents and who is therefore entitled to
practice before the Trade-marks Office.
- Trade-marks Act
- Federal legislation governing trade-mark
registration in Canada.
- Trade-marks Journal
- A publication of
the Trade-marks Office issued weekly and containing all approved
applications and Office rulings.
- Trade-marks Office
- The federal agency responsible for
registering trade-marks in Canada.
- Trade-marks records
- The inventory of
registered trade-marks and pending
applications maintained by the Trade-marks Office at
its premises in Gatineau, Quebec.
- Trade-marks register
- The official listing of
registered trade-marks.
- Trade name
- The name under which a company chooses to
operate. Trade names may or may not be considered trade-marks, depending on the circumstances.
- Universal Copyright Convention
- A country that is party to the Universal Copyright
Convention, adopted on September 6, 1952 in Geneva, Switzerland, or to that
convention as revised in Paris, France, on July 24, 1971.
- WTO
member country
- A Country that is a member of the World Trade
Organization as defined in subsection 2(1) of the World Trade Organization
Agreement Implementation Act.
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