Intellectual property, or IP, is the legal term for creations of the mind that the law treats as property. In Canada the five main types are trademarks, copyright, patents, industrial designs, and trade secrets, and each one protects a different asset, is acquired in a different way, and lasts for a different period of time. This guide explains all five in plain language, with real examples, verified 2026 government fees, and the ownership rules that catch Ontario business owners off guard.
What Is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property is property you cannot touch. It covers the brand your customers recognize, the software your team wrote, the invention behind your product, the look of the product itself, and the confidential information that gives your business its edge.
The law treats these assets much like it treats land or equipment. You can sell them, license them for royalties, pledge them as security for a loan, and pass them on through your will. For many Ontario businesses, the IP is worth more than everything else on the balance sheet combined, yet it is often the least documented asset the business owns.
In Canada, IP rights are created by federal statutes. The Trademarks Act, the Copyright Act, the Patent Act, and the Industrial Design Act apply identically in every province, and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) administers the registers. What changes in Ontario is everything around those rights. The contracts that assign IP, the employment relationships that determine who owns it, and the purchase agreements that transfer it when a business changes hands are all governed by Ontario law. That is where we spend most of our time with clients.
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What Are the Main Types of Intellectual Property in Canada?
Canadian law recognizes four registered forms of IP plus one that is never registered. Here is what each type protects, with examples.
Trademarks
A trademark is anything you use to distinguish your goods or services from everyone else’s. Business names, logos, slogans, and even distinctive packaging can all function as trademarks. Think of the name on your storefront sign or the logo on your invoices.
You gain limited trademark rights simply by using a mark in the marketplace, but those rights only extend to the geographic area where you have built a reputation. Registration under the Trademarks Act gives you the exclusive right to use the mark across Canada for 10 years, renewable indefinitely. A restaurant that will only ever operate in one neighbourhood may be fine with unregistered rights. A brand that plans to franchise, expand, or sell online should register early.
Copyright
Copyright protects original literary, artistic, dramatic, and musical works. For a modern business that means website copy, photographs, marketing videos, software code, training manuals, and articles like this one.
Copyright is automatic. The moment an original work is created, the Copyright Act protects it, generally for the life of the author plus 70 years. Registration with CIPO is optional and costs $63 when filed online, but the certificate is useful evidence of ownership if a dispute ever arises.
Patents
A patent protects an invention. To qualify, the invention must be new, useful, and inventive, meaning it cannot be an obvious step from what already exists. The Patent Act gives the owner the exclusive right to make, use, and sell the invention for up to 20 years from the filing date, in exchange for publicly disclosing how it works.
Patents are the most demanding and most expensive form of IP, and timing is critical. If you publicly disclose your invention before filing, Canada gives you a grace period of twelve months to file, but many other countries give you none. A premature product launch or trade show demonstration can permanently destroy your foreign patent rights.
Industrial Designs
An industrial design protects how a product looks. The shape of a chair, the pattern on a fabric, the contour of a bottle. It does not protect how the product works, only its visual features. Registration gives exclusive rights for up to 15 years, provided a maintenance fee is paid during the term.
There is a technical rule here that surprises people. Once a design is applied to a useful article and more than fifty copies are produced, copyright generally can no longer be enforced against imitators, and industrial design registration becomes the main protection available. Manufacturers who assume copyright covers their product’s appearance often learn this too late.
Trade Secrets
A trade secret is confidential business information that has value because it is secret. Recipes, formulas, manufacturing processes, pricing models, supplier terms, and customer lists can all qualify. There is no register and no application. Protection lasts as long as the information stays confidential, which makes trade secrets both the cheapest and the most fragile form of IP.
Trade secrets are protected through contracts and through the courts’ willingness to enforce obligations of confidence. Since 2020, knowingly obtaining a trade secret by deceit or other unlawful means has also been a criminal offence in Canada. In practice, though, your first line of defence is a properly drafted confidentiality agreement, not a criminal prosecution after the damage is done.
How Do the Five Types of IP Compare?
The table below summarizes how the five types of intellectual property differ in Canada.
| Type of IP | What it protects | How you get it | How long it lasts | Government cost in 2026 (CAD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trademark | Brand names, logos, slogans, distinctive packaging | Use creates limited local rights. Registration with CIPO gives rights across Canada | 10 years, renewable indefinitely | $491.06 for the first class plus $149.04 per additional class |
| Copyright | Original works such as text, images, software, video, music | Automatic on creation. Registration is optional | Generally the life of the author plus 70 years | $0 for protection. $63 to register online |
| Patent | New, useful, and inventive products or processes | Application and examination through CIPO | Up to 20 years from the filing date | $595.06 to file plus $1,190.13 for examination at standard rates, much less for small entities |
| Industrial design | The visual appearance of a product | Application through CIPO | Up to 15 years, with a maintenance fee | $607.93 to file plus a $531.80 maintenance fee |
| Trade secret | Confidential business information with commercial value | Keeping it secret and using contracts | As long as secrecy is maintained | No government fee |
Government fees are set federally, adjust every January under the Service Fees Act, and rose 2.7 percent on January 1, 2026. The figures above are current as of the publication date of this article. Confirm the amounts on CIPO’s trademark and patent fee pages before you file.
Do You Need to Register Your Intellectual Property?
It depends on the type, and this is an area where an honest answer beats a confident one.
Copyright exists whether you register or not. Trademark rights can exist without registration, but they are limited to your actual trading area and are harder and more expensive to enforce. Patents and industrial designs do not exist at all unless you apply and are granted registration. Trade secrets are never registered, because registration would require disclosure, and disclosure is the one thing a trade secret cannot survive.
The practical question is rarely whether you can register but whether registration is worth it for your situation. A registered trademark turns a fuzzy reputation argument into a clean government certificate. If enforcement, financing, franchising, or an eventual sale of the business is anywhere in your plans, registration usually pays for itself. In our practice, the conversation about trademarks most often starts not when a business opens, but when it receives a demand letter from someone who registered first.
Who Owns IP Created by Employees and Contractors?
This is the single most common IP problem we see in an Ontario business law practice, so it deserves its own section.
For employees, the Copyright Act sets a default rule. A work created by an employee in the course of employment belongs to the employer unless there is an agreement to the contrary. That default covers a genuine employee under a contract of service, doing the kind of work they were hired to do.
For independent contractors, the default flips. The contractor is the author and owns the copyright in what they create, even though you paid for the work in full. Canada has no work made for hire doctrine like the United States. Ownership only moves to you through a written assignment signed by the contractor, and moral rights, which protect the author’s personal connection to the work, must be separately waived because they cannot be assigned at all.
A client came to us during the sale of their business after the purchaser’s lawyer asked for proof that the company owned its own website and custom software. The code had been written years earlier by a freelance developer with no written agreement, so legally the developer still owned it. Tracking the developer down and negotiating an assignment delayed closing and cost far more than a proper independent contractor agreement would have cost at the start. Outcomes in matters like this always depend on the specific facts, but the pattern repeats constantly.
The fix is unglamorous and effective. Every employment agreement and every contractor agreement should deal with IP ownership, assignment, and moral rights in writing, before the work begins.
How Does IP Come Up When You Buy or Sell a Business in Ontario?
In our practice, IP questions surface most often inside business transactions rather than as standalone matters.
If you are buying a business, the brand, the website, the domain names, the social media accounts, the customer database, and any registrations are often the real reason you are paying for goodwill. Due diligence needs to confirm that the seller actually owns each of these assets and that ownership sits in the right entity. It is surprisingly common to find a trademark registered to a founder personally, or a domain name sitting in a former employee’s personal account, while the corporation being sold owns neither.
The structure of the deal matters too. In a share sale, the corporation keeps owning its IP and only the shares change hands. In an asset sale, each piece of IP must be individually assigned to the buyer, and transfers of registered rights should be recorded with CIPO. Our guides on buying a business in Ontario and on share versus asset sales cover the broader mechanics of both structures.
We acted for a purchaser who discovered during diligence that the operating company had never registered its trademark and that a business in another province had registered a confusingly similar name two years earlier. The purchase price was renegotiated to reflect the rebranding risk, and the deal still closed, but on different numbers. Every transaction turns on its own facts, and past matters do not predict future ones, but weak IP ownership reliably shows up in the price a buyer is willing to pay.
What Does Intellectual Property Protection Cost in Canada?
Government fees are only part of the picture, but they are the predictable part, and as of 2026 they look like this.
Registering a copyright online costs $63 and involves no ongoing fees. A trademark application costs $491.06 for the first class of goods or services and $149.04 for each additional class, with a renewal fee of $595.06 for the first class every 10 years. A patent costs $595.06 to file and $1,190.13 for examination at standard rates, with annual maintenance fees starting on the second anniversary of filing. If your business has fewer than 100 employees, you may qualify as a small entity and pay sharply reduced patent fees, a detail many applicants miss because the small entity declaration must be filed properly and on time. An industrial design costs $607.93 to file plus a single maintenance fee of $531.80 during the term.
Professional fees for lawyers vary with the work. Acting for others before CIPO on trademark and patent applications is generally reserved to agents licensed with the College of Patent Agents and Trademark Agents, and complex patent drafting is its own discipline.
Frequently Asked Questions About Intellectual Property
Is intellectual property law different in Ontario than in the rest of Canada?
The statutes that create IP rights are federal, so a trademark, patent, copyright, or industrial design works the same way in Ontario as in every other province. Ontario law governs the layer around those rights. Contracts assigning IP, employment relationships, confidentiality obligations, and business purchase agreements are all matters of Ontario law, which is why IP questions and business law questions are usually answered together.
Is registering my business name in Ontario the same as having a trademark?
No, and confusing the two is one of the most expensive mistakes we see. An Ontario business name registration or corporate name only reserves the name on the government’s corporate records. It gives you no exclusive right to the name in the marketplace. A registered trademark under the federal Trademarks Act is what gives you enforceable rights across Canada, and someone who registers a trademark can generally stop a business that only registered a corporate name.
Do I need to register my copyright to be protected?
No. Copyright arises automatically the moment an original work is created and generally lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Registration is optional, costs $63 online, and provides a certificate that serves as evidence of ownership in a dispute. Many businesses register only their most valuable works, such as core software or flagship content, and rely on automatic protection for the rest.
Can I protect a business idea?
Not as a bare idea. IP law protects the expression of an idea through copyright, the technical implementation of an idea through a patent, and the brand attached to it through a trademark, but the concept itself is free for anyone to use. If you need to discuss an idea with investors, partners, or developers before it is protected, a confidentiality agreement is the practical tool that fills the gap.
How long does it take to register a trademark in Canada?
Longer than most applicants expect. Even a smooth application commonly takes more than a year from filing to registration once examination, advertisement, and the opposition period are accounted for, and examiner objections or third party oppositions can add substantially to that. This is a reason to file early rather than waiting until the brand is already valuable enough to attract imitators.
Who owns the IP my employee or contractor creates?
For a true employee creating work in the course of their employment, copyright belongs to the employer by default. For an independent contractor, the contractor owns the work unless a written, signed assignment says otherwise, no matter who paid for it. Because the line between employee and contractor is not always obvious, and because inventions follow different rules than copyright, written IP terms in every working relationship are the only reliable answer.
The information provided above is of a general nature and should not be considered legal advice. Every transaction or circumstance is unique, and obtaining specific legal advice is necessary to address your particular requirements. Therefore, if you have any legal questions, it is recommended that you consult with a lawyer.
