As of January 1, 2024, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) is imposing a 25% fee increase to most official fees. This includes the filing fees, renewal fees, trademark opposition filing fees, fees for initiating administrative cancellation proceedings, and the fees for recording trademark assignments.
The fee increase will apply both to national applications and to designations under the Madrid Protocol. By way of example, the filing fees for a 3 class trademark application (a fairly common application) will increase from $557.87 to $736. Filing a trademark opposition currently requires payment of $789.04 to CIPO, but starting on Jan. 1, 2024 this fee will increase to $1040.
CIPO’s financial sustainability is fully dependent on service fees-generated revenue; the fee increases are intended to address CIPO’s structural deficit. CIPO indicates that the fee increase is a consequence of “[a] number of operational and financial factors [that] have converged to put the organization in a critical financial position, including almost 30% inflation since 2004, labour costs, application volumes and critical capital investments.” Read more