Policing Your Trademark

You have registered your trademark and now have the security of knowing that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office will not proceed with registering any confusingly similar trademarks without first notifying you, so that you have an opportunity to file a Statement of Opposition against the registration.

But, unfortunately, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office cannot prevent others from using confusingly similar trademarks on an unregistered basis. It is up to the owner of a registered trademark to police their own trademark and ensure that they are being vigilant about ensuring that others are not infringing on their rights. If it is discovered that another entity is using your registered trademark, or one that is confusingly similar to it, you must take action to ensure that you are enforcing your rights to its exclusive use throughout Canada. This will usually take the form of a cease and desist letter to the party that is infringing on your intellectual property. Our intellectual property team offers a thorough policing service where we will search corporate databases, the United States Patent and Trademarks Office database, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office database, domain name searches and Google searches to ensure, on an annual basis or whenever you want to have the service performed, that there are not others who are using your trademark. If we do discover that there appears to be an infringing use of your registered trademark, we can deliver a cease and desist letter to the infringing party advising them of your various rights pursuant to common law and the Trademarks Act.