Konstantinos Georgaras took up the role of interim CEO in Canada’s IP office in 2020, and it appears the right people were impressed.
The governor in council officially appointed Georgaras to the role of commissioner of patents, registrar of trademarks and CEO of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) in October.
We at Managing IP were impressed too.
The trademark office has been tackling a tremendous backlog over the past few years. Canada’s decision to enter the Madrid Protocol in 2019 drew a flood of applicants to the country, resulting in massive examination delays.
But under Georgaras’s tenure, the agency has been working hard to fight this backlog.
In April, the office began to send automated pre-assessment letters, letting filers know when goods and services in their applications didn’t match the ones in CIPO’s manual. This policy was useful because the office could examine applications faster when the goods and services could be found in the manual.
This new policy also led to some firms getting bombarded with letters from the trademark office, which took a lot of work to sort through.
But counsel are still pretty happy that Georgaras and the office are doing their best to reduce the wait.
