Trademark Filing in Montreal.

Trademark filing Montreal founders tackle is unlike filing anywhere else in North America, because a Montreal brand has to survive in two legal worlds at once. First comes Canadian registration through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and its federal rules. On top of that sits Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, reinforced by Bill 96, whose final trademark provisions took effect on 1 June 2025 and govern how your mark may appear on signage and packaging across the province. A brand cleared in Toronto or New York can still trip over Montreal’s French-language regime, so local sequencing matters from the first search.

Why trademark filing Montreal brands need their Bill 96 position secured

The single fact that sets Montreal apart is Quebec’s Charter of the French Language. Its last trademark provisions, introduced by Bill 96, came into force on 1 June 2025 and change how a non-French mark may live on products and storefronts in the province. This is the reason a Montreal brand should treat registration as a commercial priority, not an afterthought.

On public signage visible from outside a business, a non-French trademark may still appear, but French must now be markedly predominant in the same visual field, which the regulation measures as French text occupying at least twice the space of the other language. On product packaging, a recognized trademark may stay in English only where no French version of it is entered on the Canadian trademark register, but any generic or descriptive word inside that mark must also appear in French.

Quebec ultimately kept the exception open to both registered and recognized (common-law) marks, yet relying on common-law status is the riskier path. The original Bill 96 text aimed to limit the exception to registered marks, and the government only walked that back by regulation. A CIPO registration removes that uncertainty: it is on the public register, it is simple to prove to the Office quebecois de la langue francaise, and it confirms that no conflicting French version is registered. That is why a careful trademark filing Montreal strategy starts with securing a registration rather than leaning on unregistered rights.

The CIPO registration process and realistic timeline

Every Canadian trademark is granted by CIPO, an agency of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, under a single federal system that covers all provinces including Quebec. A Montreal application and a Vancouver application follow the same national procedure; only the French-language overlay is local.

The journey has four main stages. First, the application is filed and assigned a filing date. Second, a CIPO examiner reviews it for registrability, including whether the mark is distinctive and whether it conflicts with earlier marks; if the examiner raises objections, an examiner’s report issues and the applicant is given a deadline to respond. Third, an approved mark is advertised in the Trademarks Journal and runs an opposition period. Fourth, if no opposition succeeds, the mark registers and CIPO issues a certificate.

Applicants should plan for a long runway. Examination backlogs mean first examination commonly takes many months, and the full path from filing to registration frequently runs beyond a year, longer if an examiner’s report or an opposition intervenes. Filing early, before a product launch or a signage rollout, is the practical takeaway for Montreal brands working against a Bill 96 compliance deadline.

Nice classes and per-class fees after the 2019 reforms

On 17 June 2019 Canada overhauled its Trademarks Act and adopted the Nice Classification, the international system of 45 classes, with classes 1 to 34 covering goods and 35 to 45 covering services. Before that date a single government fee covered any number of classes; since then Canada charges per class.

The structure now mirrors most major offices: CIPO sets a government fee for the first Nice class in an application and a further fee for each additional class. The exact amounts are prescribed by regulation and adjusted over time, so a current fee schedule should always be confirmed before filing rather than assumed from an older figure.

Classification is a strategic decision, not clerical box-ticking. Choosing classes too narrowly leaves gaps a competitor can exploit; padding an application with classes you do not use inflates cost and can expose the registration to a later non-use challenge. For a Montreal company whose goods will carry French packaging under Bill 96, getting the goods-and-services description right the first time also keeps the registration aligned with how the brand actually appears in market.

No use requirement before registration, plus the Madrid route

The 2019 reforms removed a long-standing hurdle: an applicant no longer has to declare or prove use of the mark in Canada before it can register. You can secure a Canadian registration based on intended use, which lets a Montreal startup or an incoming brand lock in rights ahead of launch. Use still matters afterward, because a registration can be challenged for non-use once it has been on the register for three years, so the mark should be put into genuine commercial use.

The same 2019 package brought Canada into the Madrid Protocol, administered by WIPO. A Montreal business can now file a single international application based on its Canadian application or registration and designate dozens of member countries, paying one set of fees in one currency rather than hiring counsel in each market separately. For Quebec’s export-driven companies this is a major simplification.

The trade-off runs both ways. Foreign brands increasingly reach Canada by designating it through Madrid, which means more marks landing on the Canadian register and a busier clearance landscape in Montreal. A thorough Canadian search before you file is more valuable than ever, because the obstacle to your mark may be an international registration that only recently extended into Canada.

Montreal’s aerospace, AI and video-game brands raise the stakes

Montreal is one of the most brand-intensive innovation hubs in Canada, and the sectors that drive it all depend on protectable identities. Greater Montreal anchors the bulk of the country’s aerospace activity, with names such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada, CAE and Airbus Canada building globally recognized marks across products, services and training platforms.

The city is also a world-class artificial-intelligence cluster, anchored by the Mila research institute, and a video-game capital where studios such as Ubisoft Montreal and a dense indie scene ship franchises to a global audience. Software, game and AI brands tend to span many Nice classes at once, covering downloadable software, online services, entertainment and merchandising, which makes disciplined classification central to filing.

Pharma, fintech and life-sciences brands round out the picture. Across all of these, the common thread is that a Montreal brand is marketed in both English and French and sold well beyond Quebec, so the filing has to work for CIPO, for Bill 96, and for the international markets a Madrid designation will eventually reach. Treating those three layers as one plan is what separates a strong Montreal filing from a reactive one.

The opposition period and how challenges unfold

Approval by an examiner is not the end of the road. Once CIPO advertises an approved mark in the Trademarks Journal, a window opens during which any third party may oppose registration, and a competitor watching the Journal can act on a mark it believes conflicts with its own.

Opposition is a contested proceeding before the Trademarks Opposition Board. Common grounds include an alleged likelihood of confusion with an earlier mark, a claim that the mark is not distinctive, descriptiveness, or bad faith. Both sides can file evidence and written argument, and the process can take a considerable time to resolve, which is one of the main reasons a seemingly simple application can stretch well past a year.

The best defence against opposition is built before filing. A professional clearance search of the Canadian register, of pending applications and of recent Madrid designations into Canada identifies the conflicts most likely to trigger an opposition, so the mark can be adjusted, the goods narrowed, or a coexistence approach planned while changes are still cheap and easy to make.

Common mistakes bilingual Montreal brands make

The most frequent error is assuming a Canadian registration alone makes a brand compliant in Quebec. It does not. Registration governs who owns the mark; Bill 96 governs how that mark may be displayed on signage and packaging in the province. A registered English mark can still breach the Charter if a descriptive element inside it is not translated, or if exterior signage does not give French markedly predominant visual impact.

A second mistake is registering a French version of a mark the brand actually wants to keep in English. Because the packaging exception depends on there being no French version of the mark on the register, an unnecessary French registration can quietly close off the English-only option. Decisions about which language versions to register should be made deliberately, with the Bill 96 consequences understood.

Other recurring slips include filing in too few Nice classes to cover software and merchandising, relying on common-law rights instead of registering, and leaving renewals undiarized. Canadian registrations now run for ten years from registration, reduced from fifteen in the 2019 reforms, so the renewal clock and any related docketing have to be tracked from day one to avoid an accidental lapse of a Montreal brand’s protection.

IP Landscape & Resources in Montreal

Key intellectual-property authorities and venues relevant to Montreal:

• Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) — the federal agency that examines and registers Canadian trademarks and maintains the national register that every Montreal filing is cleared against
• WIPO Madrid System — the international registration system Canada joined in 2019, letting a Montreal brand extend one application to dozens of member countries
• Office quebecois de la langue francaise — administers the Charter of the French Language, whose Bill 96 signage and packaging rules took full effect on 1 June 2025 and shape how a Montreal mark may be displayed

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