2. Examination

Section 39 of the Act states:

The Commissioner must examine an application in order to determine whether it complies with the requirements of this Act.

Therefore, all applications to register a trade mark must be examined in order to determine whether they comply with the requirements of the Act. When examining an application in order to determine whether it complies with the requirements of the Act, an examiner will look at the following issues.

• The application meets the mandatory filing requirements;¹
• Any convention priority claims are made in accordance with the relevant requirements;²
• The application meets the mandatory acceptance requirements;
• All prescribed fees have been paid in respect of the application; and
• There are no absolute or relative grounds that would prevent the registration of the trade mark.³

Footnotes

¹ See the Practice Guidelines to Filing a Trade Mark Application

²See the Practice Guidelines to Priority of trade mark applications.

³The absolute and relative grounds are set out in Part 2 of the Act.