Due to a recent court decision from the Federal Court of Canada, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (the “CIPO”) is now accepting applications for trade-marks that consist of a sound.  This  in response to a trade-mark application filed by MGM to trade-mark their lion’s roar.  The MGM trade-mark application had been in process since 1992 when it was ultimately refused by the registrar in 2010.  MGM appealed the decision to the Federal Court and the Registrar was directed by the Federal Court to approve the application for advertisement in the Canadian Trade-marks Journal.

The CIPO has now set up guidelines for sound applications and state that the application for the registration of a trade-mark consisting of a sound should:

  1. state that the application is for the registration of a sound mark;
  2. contain a drawing that graphically represents the sound;
  3. contain a description of the sound; and
  4. contain an electronic recording of the sound.

As of today’s date five sound trade-mark applications have been filed with the CIPO, they can be viewed on the CIPO sound database here.