October 6, 2008

Amended Industrial Design Regulations came into force on October 5, 2008

The highlights are as follows:

• Increased flexibility concerning requirements on the colour, size and quality of a design application.
• More clarity with respect to illustrating the design in the drawings and photographs.
• Added flexibility related to including an article's environment in a design application.

You can view the regulations amendments by visiting the Canada Gazette website or view the questions and answers about the amendments in the Industrial Designs section of our site.

Amendments to the Industrial Design Regulations: Q & A

Q1 What are the amendments to the Industrial Design Regulations?

A1 These amendments will modernize, simplify and clarify requirements in the following three main categories:

1. Colour and size requirements for drawings and photographs — The changes provide for the option of filing colour drawings and photographs. The old requirement for only black and white drawings/photos has been removed since the Office now electronically scans all drawings and photographs in black and white. To provide more flexibility, the minimum size required for documents has changed from 21cm X 28 cm to a smaller size of 20cm X 25 cm. For example, smaller photographs will be accepted, i.e., the standard size of 8 inches by 10 inches.
2. Guidelines for illustrating the design, the article and environment — Guidelines have been added to provide clarity to applicants on the following 2 options: 1) Illustrate the article in its entirety in solid lines, or 2) Illustrate the design portion of the article in solid lines and the rest of the article in “stippled” (i.e. broken) lines. Also, the amended regulations provide for showing “environment” (i.e. subject matter that is not part of the article) in one view in the drawings.
3. Minor administrative amendments — Some non-essential requirements have been eliminated and minor amendments have been made for clarity and consistency purposes. For example, a title is no longer required in correspondence relating to applications and registrations, and there is clarification that documents must be wholly in English or wholly in French.

Q2 Will the amendments change the way I submit my industrial design application?

A2 Many of these amendments clarify or align with improvements made to industrial design processes and practices that are already in effect. Other amendments eliminate or simplify requirements. For clients who are already familiar with the aforementioned practice improvements, these amendments are not likely to change the way you prepare and submit your application. Primarily, these amendments provide applicants with a simpler, clearer set of requirements for filing design applications, with a particular focus on improving their understanding of document requirements in terms of content and quality.