09 January 2022

2021 Agent vs. no Agent Filings

CIPO received 78,405 trademark applications1 in 2021.  This post breaks them down2 in terms of filings which either do or do not appoint an agent—for all filings, Madrid filings and non-Madrid filings respectively.

Agents are not appointed in a significant number of applications, e.g. pro se filings, some filings by in-house corporate trademark agents and most inbound Madrid Protocol applications (which often do not appoint an agent until a later prosecution stage—if at all).

The following table and chart provide an overview (click to enlarge either image):

Table: Agent vs. No Agent - 2021


Chart: Agent vs. No Agent - 2021

The next post will provide an agent-focused statistical breakdown of 2021 filings.  See the previous post for 2021 Agent Rankings.

Have a question about Canadian trademarks that might be answerable by reference to CIPO’s data?  Send me an email—I’ll try to look into it and let you know (subject to these Terms & Conditions).


This includes all types of applications handled by CIPO’s Trademarks Branch, e.g. trademarks, certification marks, official / prohibited (i.e. Section 9) marks, geographical indications, plant variety denominations, etc.

2 The breakdown reflects CIPO’s trademark .xml data as of 31-Dec-2021. Note that filings per se are not tracked; rather, current appointments of agents are tracked as of 31-Dec-2021. For example, if an application filed in 2021 initially appointed agent A, and if agent A’s appointment was revoked, with agent B being subsequently appointed in 2021 to continue prosecution of the application, then that application is counted only in respect of the currently appointed agent B.