The past year has seen dramatic changes with an increasing number of international players coming into the Canadian legal marketplace, but none so much as the seismic impact the entry of the Australian publicly traded IPH Ltd. has had on the intellectual property bar.

Over the last 18 months, three of Canada’s most storied IP firms, all with histories dating back to the 1890s, have joined IPH, which includes firms in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.