Businesses with brand interests in Canada may wish to take note of some recent developments with respect to the province of Quebec. Containing nearly a quarter of Canada's population, if Canada is commercially important to you, Quebec is likely to be too.

As most will know, Quebec is a French-speaking province and almost a Francophone island in Anglophone Canada. It is quite protective of its language - if I digress, rightly so in my opinion. It's easy for languages to be usurped by English and a decrease in speakers can result in an erosion of culture. Isn't the diversity of this world wonderful?

Anyway, the recently introduced Bill 96 has modified the Charter of the French language and its impact on trademarks ('trademark' being one word that side of the Atlantic). It places new restrictions on the use of English and other non-French trademarks on products, packaging, signs, posters and commercial advertising, coming into force on 1 June 2025.

“Recognized trademarks”

However, the bill gives exemptions to “recognized trademarks”. In this context, "recognized" covers not just registered trade marks, but also passing off rights (often referred to as unregistered trademarks). These are protected in Canada under common law and statute (in Section 7 of the Trademarks Act). It does not appear to cover pending trademark applications.

Only "recognized trademarks" may appear exclusively in a language other than French if no French version is registered on:

• Products and product packaging
• Public signs
• Posters and other commercial advertising

Generic terms and product descriptions to be translated

There will be a requirement that any generic term or product description included directly on products or their packaging be translated into French and displayed permanently on the product or its packaging. Anything manufactured prior to 1 June 2025 without being translated into French can remain for sale for a grace period of two years.

This does exclude the name of a business (house mark) or the name of the product from being considered descriptive. ‘Apple’ won’t be needing to translate their house mark on their computers to ‘Pomme’ it seems.

Signs and posters that are visible from the exterior (e.g. shop signs) also face stricter requirements. The French appearing on them must be "markedly predominant", meaning it should be more impactful than text in another language. This means:

1. The space for the French text is at least twice as large as the space for text in another language. Our understanding is this does not mean the text itself must be double the size. For example, French text could be longer than English text, but this does not mean the French has to be in font size 20 if the English is in font size 10, rather that the area the French text is in should be double that of the English.
   
   
2. The French text’s legibility and permanent visibility are equivalent to those of the text in another language.

Dynamic signage is provided with an exception i.e. where a sign appears in English and then flips to appear in French.

Regulation and conclusion

It will be with the Office québécois de la langue française to regulate these changes. It is anticipated that they will adopt a collaborative approach to resolving issues but, of course, it would be preferable to adopt measures that help avoid any disruption to your business in Quebec. Having products taken off shelves or shops temporarily closed could, of course, have a negative impact on your business. Redesigning packaging would also involve time and cost and, while “non-compliant” packaging could be used in the rest of Canada, this may be impractical.

Unfortunately, and notwithstanding that the Canadian IP Office is having a huge recruitment drive for new trademark examiners, registrations take a long time to be obtained in Canada and it is unlikely applications filed now will be registered by June next year. Filing an application and getting a quick registration is not going to be a workaround here.