How to protect an invention in Canada: CIPO patent steps, the 12-month grace period, trademark fees, and what to do before you show your idea to anyone.
Applies in: across Canada
Write it down, search it, and file before you show it around. In Canada, protection for an invention comes through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, known as CIPO. A patent gives you a time-limited, exclusive right to make, use, and sell an invention. A trademark gives you rights in the brand that identifies your goods or services. They are different tools, filed separately, and most inventors end up needing to think about both.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Patent and trademark decisions turn on facts that are specific to your invention and your plans, and a registered patent agent or trademark agent can check a filing before you commit money to it.
A patent covers how something works. To qualify in Canada, an invention must be new, useful, and inventive — new means first in the world, useful means functional and operative, and inventive means it shows ingenuity and is not obvious to someone of average skill in that field. It can be a product, a composition, a machine, a process, or an improvement on any of those.
A trademark covers what buyers call it. A name, a logo, or another sign that distinguishes your goods or services from someone else's is trademark territory, not patent territory. Filing a patent does not reserve your brand name. Registering a trademark does not stop a competitor from building the same device with a different name on it. When inventors get into trouble, it is often because they assumed one filing did both jobs.
Before you talk to manufacturers, post a demo video, or pitch at a trade show, write the invention out in full: the problem, how your version solves it, each part and how the parts work together, and the variations you have tried. Sketch it if you can, and keep dated notes as the design changes. Those notes are not a filing, but they give you and any agent a clear record of what you built and when.
Privacy at this stage is practical. Canada has a grace period, covered below, but it has limits, and several other countries are stricter or have no equivalent. A public post can hand a competitor the details before you have a filing date. If you must discuss the idea with a supplier or partner before filing, use a written confidentiality agreement and share only what that person needs to see.
Search CIPO's records before you pay for a filing. For the invention, search the Canadian Patent Database for patents and applications close to yours, including older ones that may already describe your idea. For the brand, search the trademark records for names and logos close to the one you plan to use, in the same or related classes of goods and services.
A search will not give you a yes-or-no answer on its own. Patent language is dense, and a document that looks different at first glance can still cover the same idea. What it does give you is a cheaper place to find a fatal problem: an earlier patent that already claims your core idea, or a registered trademark that blocks your planned name. If the search turns up something close, get an agent's view rather than pushing ahead and hoping. A small design change, or a different brand name, is cheap now and expensive later.
A Canadian patent application needs a full description of the invention. That is the bargain at the heart of the system: you describe it completely enough that someone skilled in the field could work it, and in return you can get an exclusive right. Applications are disclosed to the public after 18 months of confidentiality, so assume from the start that the description will eventually be readable by competitors.
Timing matters because Canada is a first-to-file system: the first applicant to file is the one entitled to the patent. If two people are working on the same problem, the one who files first has the advantage, even if the other started earlier in the workshop. That does not mean rushing in a half-written application. It means not sitting on a finished invention while you perfect the marketing and packaging.
Once granted, a Canadian patent lasts for 20 years from the filing date. The clock runs from filing, not from grant, so years spent in examination count against the term. A patent is also territorial: a Canadian patent covers Canada. If you plan to sell abroad, the deadlines for foreign filings run from your first filing date, so do not leave that question until after the Canadian application is done.
Canada gives inventors a grace period of one year before the filing date. If information became publicly available because you disclosed it, or because someone else disclosed it after obtaining the knowledge directly or indirectly from you, that disclosure is not counted when CIPO assesses whether the claimed invention is novel and inventive — provided it happened within that one-year window.
Read the limits carefully. The grace period covers your own disclosures and disclosures that trace back to you, not an independent disclosure by someone who worked it out on their own. It is measured against the Canadian filing date, and rules elsewhere differ, so a disclosure that is safe in Canada can still destroy novelty where you later want protection. The safe order is still file first, disclose second. Treat the grace period as a safety net for a disclosure that already happened, not as a plan. If you have already disclosed, note the exact date and keep a copy of what was shown — an agent needs that date to judge whether the grace period helps.
Do the trademark work in parallel with the patent work, not months after launch. Pick a name you can actually own: a purely descriptive name for the product itself is a weak starting point, while a distinctive name is easier to register and defend. Search first, as in step 2.
The filing itself goes through CIPO. In 2026, an online application costs $491.06 for the first class of goods or services, plus $149.04 for each additional class. Filed by any other means, the first class costs $640.10, with each additional class still $149.04. Classes are the categories your goods or services fall into, so a product sold in several categories costs more than one sold in a single category. Those figures are the application fees alone; an agent's charges are separate.
Trademark application fees are published and fixed, and they are set out above. Patent costs are harder to pin down, because they depend on how complex the invention is, whether you use an agent, and how much back-and-forth examination takes. CIPO's patent fees change yearly, so check the current patent fee schedule before you file rather than budgeting from an old article. Agent fees, drawings, and any foreign filings are separate, and they are usually the larger part of the bill for a complex invention. Budget in that order: search and advice first, Canadian filings second, foreign filings only once you know the invention has a market worth protecting abroad.
CIPO adjusts certain fees every January 1 under the Service Fees Act. From January 1, 2027, the trademark application fees rise 1.7%: an online application costs $499.41 for the first class of goods or services and $151.57 for each additional class. Filed by any other means, the first class costs $650.98, with each additional class still $151.57. The fee you pay depends on when CIPO receives the payment, not when you start the application, so an application paid for on or after January 1, 2027 is charged at the 2027 rates. The 2026 figures above still apply to payments received before that date.
Showing the invention in public before filing, then assuming the grace period fixes everything, including abroad. Waiting to file while a competitor files first. Filing a patent and assuming the brand name is covered. Picking a brand name without a trademark search, then paying to rebrand. Describing the invention thinly in the application to keep secrets back, then finding the description does not support the claims. Each of these is fixable if caught early and hard to fix once a filing date, a launch date, or a competitor's filing has passed.
None of this needs a lawyer on day one, but it does need the right order: record the invention, search, file the patent, and file the trademark for the brand you intend to sell under.
| Online application, first class of goods or services | $491.06 |
|---|---|
| Online application, each additional class | $149.04 |
| Application by any other means, first class of goods or services | $640.10 |
| Application by any other means, each additional class | $149.04 |
Fees are CIPO's published 2026 trademark fees. Patent fees are separate and change yearly, so check CIPO's current patent fee schedule before you file rather than relying on an older figure.
Write down exactly what the invention is and how it works, search CIPO's patent and trademark records for anything close, and then file with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. A patent covers the invention itself. A trademark covers the brand name or logo you sell it under. They are separate filings, and one does not give you the other.
20 years from the filing date, once granted. That term runs from filing, not from grant, so time spent in examination still counts against the 20 years. Patent applications are also disclosed to the public after 18 months of confidentiality, which is the trade for the exclusive right: you describe the invention in full, and the public can read that description.
If you disclosed your own invention, or someone disclosed it after learning about it from you, that disclosure is not counted against novelty and inventiveness when it happened within one year before your Canadian filing date. It does not cover an independent disclosure by a stranger, and it does not work the same way everywhere else, so do not treat a Canadian grace period as worldwide cover. File first if you can, and get advice before you rely on the grace period for a filing outside Canada.
A patent covers a new, useful, and inventive product, composition, machine, process, or improvement on one of those. A trademark covers a sign that distinguishes your goods or services from someone else's, such as a name or logo. A patent will not stop someone else using a similar brand name, and a trademark will not stop someone else making the same invention.
Filed online through CIPO, $491.06 for the first class of goods or services and $149.04 for each additional class. Filed by any other means, the first class costs $640.10, with each additional class still $149.04. Those are CIPO's published 2026 fees for the application itself; an agent's charges, if you hire one, are on top.
File the patent work first if the invention itself is the asset and disclosure is a risk, because patent rights turn on filing and novelty. Run the trademark search at the same time, so you do not build packaging, a website, and a launch around a name someone else already owns. In practice most inventors do both in parallel: the patent filing protects how it works, and the trademark filing protects what buyers call it.
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