On July 17, 2024, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) launched a new electronic system and portal, MyCIPO Patents, as part of its Next Generation Patents initiative. While the platform will be extremely helpful once fully operational, the launch has been fraught with difficulties, creating delays, errors and unresponsiveness.
The following is an update of the MyCIPO Patents system as of November 24, 2025, and delays applicants may yet face.
New filings
All new filings are now using MyCIPO Patents, and we now obtain an application number immediately on filing. The official Filing Certificate / Acknowledgement of National Entry follows once CIPO confirms that all filing requirements were met. We note some Filing Certificates / Acknowledgements of National Entry are missing priority numbers and/or have truncated titles or truncated inventor information, but we have been assured that these are correct on file. Corrected versions will NOT be sent out. Duplicate Filing Certificates and Acknowledgements of National Entry have been issued in some cases; these are being corrected by CIPO if two different application numbers are accidentally assigned to the same application.
CIPO has advised that the current status of processing of new divisional filings is September 2025, of new PCT national phase filings is July 2025, and of new regular applications is September 2025.
Publication
There continues to be a delay beyond the 18-month confidentiality period for the publication of many applications. There continues to be a delay in publication of divisional applications.
No requests for early publication (before the end of the confidentiality period) were acted on by CIPO between July and December 2024.
The Office reports that they started publishing applications in December 2024, but as of November 2025, technical issues prevent the resumption of normal publication volumes.
Delays in publication or laying open of applications has led to the inability of many third-party maintenance fee payment providers to pay maintenance fees. These are still due and can be paid through general correspondence only.
Maintenance fees
We are able to pay maintenance fees regardless of whether an application number has been assigned. However, we cannot use the automated maintenance-fee payment system if an application number has not yet been assigned. Instead, payment must be made through “general correspondence”.
Maintenance fees paid using “general correspondence” are now processed to November 2025, and though these may not yet be up to date in the Canadian Patent Database, CIPO reports that confirmation of payment is available through the MyCIPO Patents portal.
The Office now reports that they have started issuing notices for unpaid maintenance fees, starting at the 2nd year due date and “progressively including additional anniversaries as the progress evolves”. The Office reports that there are instances of such notices having erroneously been issued despite payments having been made. The Office is not yet issuing notices for unpaid late fees.
The Office reports that they have started issuing courtesy acknowledgements for maintenance fee and late fee payments.
Requests for Examination
No acknowledgements of Requesting Examination were issued between July 2024 and March 2025. This has resumed in March, and we are now seeing the backlog being cleared. We have seen CIPO clerical errors in the information on the acknowledgements, which are documented and acknowledged; the Office will only send a written correction in cases where the error is in the application number or filing date, or if the error resulted in the acknowledgement being sent to the wrong place. Other errors will be corrected in CIPO’s system, but a new acknowledgement will not be issued. CIPO has advised that Requests for Examination from February 2025 are currently being processed.
Examiner Requisitions
Examiners have been issuing Examiner Requisitions (Office Actions) throughout. However, processing of Applicant responses to Examiner Requisitions and getting them back to Examiners for consideration has been significantly delayed. As a result, we have noticed significant delays in second Examiner Requisitions and/or Allowances based on responses filed since July 2024. Further, due to delays in processing voluntary amendments, some Examiner Requisitions have been based on outdated information. CIPO has relaxed the requirements for withdrawal of Examiner Requisitions in some cases.
The Office reports that they are currently processing responses to Examiner Requisitions from December 2024 and voluntary amendments from October 2024.
Expedited examination
Requests for expedited examination (either through PPH or otherwise) had not been processed between July 2024 and May 2025. CIPO has indicated that all expedited examination requests submitted before September 2025 have now been processed, and confirmation that the request was compliant can be verified in the Canadian Patents Database, as the Office will no longer issue written confirmation of compliance. CIPO has confirmed that, though these cases have been processed, there exist many expedited examination cases that are significantly past the service standard or performance target for examination, but correcting this is a priority of the Office.
Requests for Continued Examination
Requests for Continued Examination are being timely processed and added to Examiners’ workflow, with CIPO currently processing Requests from September 2025. Acknowledgements are not being generated, but confirmation of the request can be verified in the Canadian Patent Database.
Requests for Extension of Time
The CIPO reports that they are currently processing extensions of time from January 2025, but that “operational focus is currently elsewhere”. The Office now confirms that the note “Extension of Time for Taking Action Requirements Determined Compliant” in the Canadian Patent Database indicates that the extended due date has been entered and that the letter advising of the extension of time will follow in due course.
Allowances
There were no Notices of Allowance issued between July and November. Since November, we have started to see Notices of Allowances being issued, more recently at an improved pace. CIPO has indicated that the backlog of Notices of Allowance received from examiners has been cleared to mid-June 2025.
Grant
We continue to see significant delays and greatly reduced volumes of granted patents. CIPO has started publishing a list of all applications where the status is “pre-grant”. CIPO aims for granting and issuance to occur within six weeks of such “pre-grant” status, stating they are prioritizing granting of applications which have been “pre-grant” for more than six weeks. CIPO is currently processing final fee payments from October 2024.
Changes of agent
CIPO reports they have started processing revocation and appointment of agent requests, and are currently processing such requests from December 2024.
CIPO also reports that, effective November 2024, they have started issuing Notices where there is no agent on file and an appointment of patent agent is required.
Assignments and transfers
Assignments and transfers are still greatly delayed, with CIPO working through the backlog. The Office has indicated that recording of changes of name of the applicant filed after May 2025 is currently on hold. CIPO has indicated that transfers from January 2025 and document registrations from October 2024 are currently being processed. Document registrations where there is more than one document to be registered are not yet being processed, but registrations where a single document is to be registered against multiple files are now being processed. Certificates of recordal are not yet being generated. Confirmation of compliant transfer can be verified in the Canadian Patent Database.
Changes of address or method of correspondence
The processing of changes of address or method of correspondence requests for applications with numbers above 3,243,062 has resumed. The Office reports they are currently processing such requests from May 2025.
Correction of applicant or inventor
The processing of corrections to applicants or inventors for applications with numbers above 3,243,062 has resumed, but is now temporarily on hold until further notice. The Office reports they are currently processing such requests from March 2025.
Late notices
If a maintenance fee is not paid by the deadline, CIPO must send out a “late notice” setting a late payment deadline, which is the later of: six months after the missed maintenance fee deadline, and two months after the date of the late notice. A similar late notice is sent if the deadline to request examination is missed. No late notices have been issued between July 2024 and July 2025. This means many “late” periods (including for maintenance fee payments) have been extended beyond 6 months, giving Applicants an extended opportunity to revive applications. Third-party rights still apply in many instances after six months, regardless of whether a late notice has been sent.
CIPO reports that they have resumed issuing notices for missed maintenance fees, for all patent applications and for granted patents at the 2nd to 10th anniversary stage.
CIPO also reports that there are instances where such notices have been issued despite payments having been made.
While notices are being issued for missed maintenance fees, late fees are not yet being policed, and there are no notices, or confirmation of payments being sent out for late fees at this time.
Abandonment notices
Notices of Abandonment have not been issued since July 2024. Note that the issuance of a notice of abandonment does not trigger the reinstatement period, which is timed from the date of abandonment regardless of whether a notice has been issued.
Reinstatement notices
Notices of reinstatement have not been issued since July 2024. Applications for which reinstatement has been requested are still showing as abandoned.
Incorrect status on CIPO database
There continues to be a volume of applications and patents with incorrect statuses on the public CIPO database, which do not reflect submissions filed since July 2024. CIPO has stated that the status will be corrected once correspondence has been processed. CIPO has asked Applicants to only report errors “caused by known issues” where there is an urgent issue, such as a risk of loss of rights.
Note that CIPO now reports that some applications or patents may appear in good standing or a state of administrative compliance when, in reality, they may be deemed abandoned or expired. CIPO has reminded Applicants that Canadian Patent Database data should not be relied upon – Applicants should rely on their own records, and that responsibility for meeting deadlines remains with the applicant or patentee, regardless of what is indicated in the online database. It appears there is no way a third party can determine with certainty the status of a Canadian patent or application at this time.
CIPO also reports that some applications or patents may appear abandoned erroneously, and that this may result in delays in processing actions requested on those applications.
Services on “hold”
CIPO is currently not processing:
- abandonment notices;
- deemed expiry notices;
- reinstatement notices;
- abandonment/response to report tied to applications that are abandoned, unless the erroneous abandonment status has been corrected;
- Commissioner’s notice – outstanding documents and information
- Courtesy deemed expiry notices for patents eligible for reversal but for which no reversal request has been received in relation to late maintenance fees
- Due care letters (either acceptance or intention to refuse) for non-payment of maintenance fees
- changes of address, method of correspondence, or correcting applicant or inventor for application numbers below 3,243,062;
- assignment or name change registrations where multiple documents are listed against the same file;
- refunds;
- requests for reinstatement and reversal of deemed expiry.
Service standards
It is noted that CIPO service standards for operational tasks have now been largely doubled, to 36 weeks.
The preceding is intended as a timely update on Canadian intellectual property and technology law. The content is informational only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. To obtain such advice, please communicate with our offices directly.