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Court permits amendment of patent record to remove inventors and co-owner

Authored byUrszula Wojtyra

In H. Lundbeck v Canada (Commissioner of Patents), 2021 FC 1394, the Court granted an application to amend a patent record to remove inventors and a co-owner. A Notice of Allegation (NOA) in respect of the patent was served after the application record was filed. The Court concluded that granting the application was appropriate as the NOA does not impugn ownership or inventorship, and there was no indication of how granting the application would prejudice rights or interests of the parties to the NOA. The Court reasoned that it was “immaterial to the public whether there is one inventor or two joint inventors as this does not go to the term or to the substance of the invention nor even to entitlement,” and that the same may be said about the ownership of the patent. 

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