Court un-limits limitation period

By AJ Macaulay

A five-member panel of the Alberta Court of Appeal (ABCA) confirmed that the six-year limitation period provided by the federal Patent Act applies to patent infringement claims in the provincial court.

In allowing the appeal, the ABCA set aside the summary dismissal of the appellant’s claim and declared the limitation period findings of Canadian Energy Services Inc v Secure Energy Inc, 2022 ABCA 200 (“Secure Energy”), as related to patent infringement claims, should no longer be followed.

In May 2016, the appellant (“JL Energy”) brought a claim for patent infringement and breach of contract against the respondent (“Alliance Energy”) in the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta. The case management judge summarily dismissed both causes of action, relying upon Secure Energy’s application of the two-year limitation period from the Limitations Act, RSA 2000, c L-12, (“Alberta Limitations Act”), and finding JL Energy had sufficient knowledge of the claim as of November 2013.

On appeal, JL Energy received permission to re-argue the limitation period finding from Secure Energy as it applies to patent infringement claims. This time, applying the six-year limitation period from the federal Patent Act, the ABCA stressed the following:

• Section 12 (Conflict of Laws) of the Alberta Limitations Act was never intended to override federal jurisdiction [19]
• The Alberta Limitations Act does not apply to causes of action arising from a federal statute which prescribes its own discrete limitation period [32]
• Alberta’s concurrent jurisdiction to decide patent infringement claims is not, on its own, a basis for applying provincial limitation periods [29]

Looking forward, parties to a patent infringement dispute in a federal or provincial court can expect consistent application of the federal Patent Act’s six-year limitation period.

JL Energy Transportation Inc v Alliance Pipeline Limited Partnership, 2025 ABCA 26