OTTAWA – Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains launched Canada’s new intellectual property (IP) strategy last week.
“Intellectual property is a key component of an innovation economy,” reads the press release. “It helps Canadian innovators reach commercial success, further discovery and create middle-class jobs by protecting their ideas and ensuring they reap the full rewards of their inventions and creations.”
(Ed note: We bet the FairPlay Canada coalition is analyzing this announcement closely.)
Canada’s IP Strategy will help Canadian entrepreneurs better understand and protect intellectual property and also get better access to shared intellectual property, says the ministry. Canada is a leader in research, science, creation and invention, but it can do more when it comes to commercializing innovations.
The IP Strategy will make changes in three key areas:
- It will amend key IP laws (which ones weren’t outlined in the announcement) to ensure that “barriers to innovation” are removed, “particularly any loopholes that allow those seeking to use IP in bad faith to stall innovation for their own gain,” says the announcement. “The IP Strategy will create an independent body to oversee patent and trademark agents, which will ensure that professional and ethical standards are maintained, and will support the provision of quality advice from IP professionals.”
- The Canadian Intellectual Property Office will launch a suite of programs to help improve IP literacy among Canadians, including support for domestic and international engagement between Indigenous people and decision makers as well as for research activities and capacity building, as well as training for federal employees who deal with IP governance.
- It will provide tools to support Canadian businesses as they learn about IP and pursue their own IP strategies. The government is creating a patent collective “to bring together businesses to facilitate better IP outcomes for members. The patent collective is the coming together of firms to share in IP expertise and strategy, including gaining access to a larger collection of patents and IP,” reads the announcement.
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