New Year, New Border Enforcement Measures in Effect

On December 31, 2014, the Canada Gazette published an order proclaiming into force sections 2, 5 and 6, subsection 7(6) and sections 43, 44 and 60 of the Combating Counterfeit Products Act, c. 32, S.C. 2014, as of January 1, 2015. The Act itself received Royal Assent on December 9, 2014.

The principal effect of this order is to bring into force new border enforcement measures intended to combat the importation or exportation of trade-mark or copyright-infringing goods.[1]
These measures involve three main features:

Prohibitions on importation and exportation of infringing copies or goods[2] under the Copyright and Trade-Marks Acts, respectively, which provide a basis for detention of the goods in question by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) under s. 101 of the Customs Act;
A mechanism by which rights-holders can request the assistance of the CBSA to enforce their rights; and
A mechanism by which the CBSA can provide information to rights-holders about suspect shipments and, potentially, the identity of the parties involved; samples of the allegedly infringing goods; and access to inspect the goods.

This regime is intended to support civil enforcement by rights-holders. (Separate criminal offences were among the provisions that came into force in December, when the Act received Royal Assent.) The usual mode of operation for this enforcement regime will presumably be triggered by a rights-holder’s Request for Assistance, although the Act does permit border officers to detain allegedly infringing goods at their own discretion...

This has been excerpted from 6 January 2015 article by Keith Rose, intellectual property lawyer, for the Canadian Techlaw Blog.