Now that the College has given you a CPATA Number, your CIPO-allocated trademark agent registration number is irrelevant, right? Wrong!
To become qualified as a registered Canadian trademark agent one must pass a difficult examination1. Until The College of Patent Agents & Trademark Agents took over on 28-June-2021, CIPO administered the qualification process and the exam in accordance with sections 16-21 of the Trademarks Regulations, SOR/2018-227. Those sections were repealed by SOR/2021-130, s. 3 upon coming into force of the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents Act, S.C. 2018, c. 27, s. 247. The College now administers the agent qualification process and the exam.
In the pre-College era, anyone who passed the exam and paid the requisite fee was recognized by CIPO as a registered Canadian trademark agent, such recognition including entry of that person’s name on the list of trademark agents kept under former section 28 of the Trademarks Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. T-13 (TMA s. 28 was repealed by S.C. 2018, c. 27, s. 255). Although not mentioned in the now-repealed TMR and TMA sections, such recognition also resulted in CIPO’s allocation of a unique trademark agent registration number to that person.
Also in the pre-College era, any firm having at least one member whose name was on the list of trademark agents could ask CIPO to add the firm’s name to the list. Significantly—but again not mentioned in the now-repealed TMR and TMA sections—addition of a firm’s name to the list of trademark agents resulted in CIPO’s allocation of a unique trademark agent registration number to that firm2.
Multi-office firms were allocated separate trademark agent registration numbers for each of their offices, if they had trademark agents in each office. For example, Miller Thomson LLP/S.E.N.C.R.L. has 8 offices—each having one of more trademark agents—in 8 Canadian cities. Each of those 8 offices has its own unique trademark agent registration number.
The College does not make use of CIPO’s trademark agent registration numbers3. Instead, the College allocates a so-called CPATA Number to each individual agent licensed by the College. An individual who is both a registered Canadian trademark agent and a registered Canadian patent agent is allocated only one CPATA Number. CPATA Numbers are not allocated to firms, because the terms “patent agent” and “trademark agent” defined in the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents Act mention only individuals, not firms. The College does not consider firms to be agents.
As of 31-Dec-2021 the College had licensed 1,375 active trademark agents4. All of those agents have registration numbers which CIPO allocated before the College took over. What about new agents who pass the 2021 trademark agent examination administered by the College? The 2021 exam results are not yet available, but some candidates will surely pass the 2021 exam. The College has already allocated CPATA Numbers to them and will change their License Class from “Class 3 - Trademark Agent in Training” to “Class 1 - Active Trademark Agent” upon payment of the applicable fee. The College will not allocate trademark agent registration numbers to candidates who pass the 2021 exam, but it is my understanding that CIPO will do so internally for any newly qualified agents who are appointed in trademark filings submitted to CIPO. This will simplify CIPO’s record-keeping as explained below.
It is also my understanding that CIPO will internally allocate trademark agent registration numbers to newly formed firms, even though firms are no longer trademark agents. For example, if CIPO receives a submission appointing a new firm of which CIPO has no prior record, CIPO will internally allocate a trademark agent registration number to the new firm to simplify CIPO’s record-keeping.
Trademark agent registration numbers enable CIPO to differentiate between agents. Suppose two agents have the same name. CIPO could theoretically differentiate them based on their addresses. However address-based differentiation can be cumbersome5 and may be impossible in some cases, e.g. if two agents having the same name work at the same firm.
Trademark agent registration numbers are also significant because CIPO includes them in its .xml data. Recall that CIPO publishes a separate .xml file for each mark. As of 7-Mar-2022 there are 1,851,754 marks and thus 1,851,754 .xml files. If an agent is appointed in respect of a mark then CIPO’s .xml file for that mark contains a <tmk:NationalRepresentative> XML element like this one from CIPO’s .xml file for application no. 2163155 (click to enlarge the image):
If the agent appointed in respect of a mark has no firm affiliation, then the agent’s individual registration number appears in the <com:CommentText> element within the <tmk:NationalRepresentative> XML element. In a pro se situation the .xml file for the mark in question will not have a <tmk:NationalRepresentative> element.
How do trademark agent registration numbers simplify CIPO’s record-keeping? They serve as pointers to the marks for which each agent is appointed. Thus, a lookup query equivalent to “show me all of the marks for which the trademark agent registration number is 6209” quickly yields a list of every mark for which the Burlington, Ontario office of Ridout & Maybee LLP is appointed as agent. CIPO can readily and reliably implement agent address changes via an update query such as “change the city portion of the agent’s address from Toronto to Ottawa for every mark having trademark agent registration number 1234”. Many firms are appointed in respect of thousands—in some cases tens of thousands—of marks. Without trademark agent registration numbers serving as pointers to each firm’s marks, CIPO would have to use addresses to identify and maintain its records of each firm’s marks. That would quickly become untenable.
Unfortunately, unlike the trademark .xml data, CIPO’s patent .xml data does not include patent agent registration numbers, even though those numbers exist for both individual agents and firms. Furthermore, neither the trademark .xml data nor the patent .xml data provides any aid to disambiguation of applicant names, inventor names, assignee names, opponent names, Section 45 requesting party names, etc.
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).
1 Canada has only agents—practitioners who happen to be lawyers are credentialed as agents for purposes of dealing with CIPO. Historically, lawyers were not required to pass an examination to become qualified as trademark agents, but that exemption was removed effective 1-April-2014 with the coming into force of Regulations Amending the Trade-marks Regulations, P.C. 2013-1334.↩
2 Firms which are registered as trademark agents tend to transact all of their business with CIPO in the firm’s name, not in the name of the individual agent who happens to file an application or make any other submission to CIPO in relation to a mark. Sometimes an agent completing one of CIPO’s eFiling templates may inadvertently submit something in the agent’s own name, rather than in the firm’s name. Such occurrences are usually caught by the firm’s routine clerical oversight and typically result in a Change of Agent submission such that prosecution continues in the firm’s name.↩
3 The Licensee Information section accessible via the College’s Licensee portal lists CIPO-allocated agent registration numbers for each agent licensed by the College, but this is understood to be a historical convenience only which will not be updated going forward.↩
4 See The College’s Agent Roster as of 31-Dec-2021↩
5 See for example Montreal or Montréal? ETL and data cleansing↩
6 In the “What does an agent need to know after the coming-into-force day of the College?” section of its College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents web page, CIPO says “If an agent changes their name or their address (e.g. moves from one firm to another), they must contact both the Patent Office and the Office of the Registrar of Trademarks in writing in order for the updated information to be applied to their patent and trademark matters. Unless the Patent Office or the Office of the Registrar of Trademarks receives instructions to the contrary, the updated name or address information will be applied to all of the agent’s patent and trademark matters at CIPO.”↩
