Canada - finally joining "Nice" ...

Some exciting news from Canada... well, if you are a trade mark geek enthusiast that is.

The Canadian government recently introduced what appears to be a rather impressive change to the Canadian Trademarks Act (or should it still state "trade-mark"); see here for the underlying bill.  The changes appear to include the - long awaited? - adoption of the Nice Classification system for Canadian trade marks and a shorter renewal term of 10 years rather than the current 15 years.

When will it all happen?  There are appear to be different views: most likely this autumn (2014) but the connected implenting regulations relating to the Madrid Protocol may only "happen" in 2015.  A bit more on the can be found on the website of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office here.