Patent Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. P-4)

Marginal note:Staff

6. There may be appointed in the manner authorized by law such principal examiners, examiners, associate examiners and assistant examiners, clerks, stenographers and other assistants as are necessary for the administration of this Act.

Marginal note:Officers of Patent Office not to deal in patents

• 7. (1) No officer or employee of the Patent Office shall buy, sell, acquire or traffic in any invention, patent or right to a patent, or any interest therein, and every purchase, sale, assignment, acquisition or transfer of any invention, patent or right to a patent, or any interest therein, made by or to any officer or employee is void.

• Marginal note:Restriction

  (2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a sale by an original inventor or to an acquisition under the last will, or by the intestacy, of a deceased person.

Marginal note:Clerical errors

8. Clerical errors in any instrument of record in the Patent Office do not invalidate the instrument, but they may be corrected under the authority of the Commissioner.

Marginal note:Electronic or other submission of documents, information or fees

• 8.1 (1) Subject to the regulations, any document, information or fee that is authorized or required to be submitted to the Commissioner under this Act may be submitted in electronic or other form in any manner specified by the Commissioner.

• Marginal note:Time of receipt

  (2) For the purposes of this Act, any document, information or fee submitted in accordance with subsection (1) is deemed to be received by the Commissioner at the time provided by the regulations.

Marginal note:Storage of documents or information in electronic or other form

8.2 Subject to the regulations, any document or information received by the Commissioner under this Act in electronic or other form may be entered or recorded by any information storage device, including any system of mechanical or electronic data processing, that is capable of reproducing stored documents or information in intelligible form within a reasonable time.

Marginal note:Destroyed or lost patents

9. If any patent is destroyed or lost, a certified copy may be issued in lieu thereof on payment of the prescribed fee.

Marginal note:Inspection by the public

• 10. (1) Subject to subsections (2) to (6) and section 20, all patents, applications for patents and documents filed in connection with patents or applications for patents shall be open to public inspection at the Patent Office, under such conditions as may be prescribed.

• Marginal note:Confidentiality period

  (2) Except with the approval of the applicant, an application for a patent, or a document filed in connection with the application, shall not be open to public inspection before a confidentiality period of eighteen months has expired.

• Marginal note:Beginning of confidentiality period

  (3) The confidentiality period begins on the filing date of the application or, where a request for priority has been made in respect of the application, it begins on the earliest filing date of any previously regularly filed application on which the request is based.

• Marginal note:Withdrawal of request

  (4) Where a request for priority is withdrawn on or before the prescribed date, it shall, for the purposes of subsection (3) and to the extent that it is withdrawn, be considered never to have been made.

• Marginal note:Withdrawn applications

  (5) An application shall not be open to public inspection if it is withdrawn in accordance with the regulations on or before the prescribed date.

• Marginal note:Prescribed date

  (6) A prescribed date referred to in subsection (4) or (5) must be no later than the date on which the confidentiality period expires.