Industry committee  That's a loaded question. I'm trying to find a lawyerly answer to it. I think any time we enter into international trade agreements that have an impact on Canada, all Canadians, including our representative, should be debating how that is done. I don't know what the best way to

Industry committee  The laws that need to be thought about are not IP laws. Our IP laws are perfectly flexible as they are. We just don't have much in terms of knowledge about intellectual property management. How do you use them? Let me give you a couple of examples where government does go wrong.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question. There certainly has been a move through most of the major granting agencies, including Genome Canada, which requires matching funds. It's been on a “you have to get partners” basis. I think it was a good start, but it hasn't necessarily translated int

Industry committee  I don't know what's in the clauses. I've just seen what's being negotiated. I'm assuming the government will be resisting some. Some are put up just to trade away with. Certainly, we're under pressure from both the United States and Europe to increase patent rights, especially

Industry committee  No, I said the opposite—no trials by jury.

Industry committee  The world is moving towards collaboration. The industrial models about 30 years ago had high intellectual property rights. A single firm would take a product basically from invention all the way to the market. There was a study done about five or six years ago. They looked at t

Industry committee  Well, in some ways our patent system is too strict. If you look at the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, or if you look at the U.K. courts, they're actually softening some of the rules around non-obviousness, about patentable subject matter. We're moving or have moved in the oppos

Industry committee  The jury trial is clearly one. I think it's bad for everyone. You could even see the courts pulling back. I like the U.S. system. It's really well suited to the United States. But you have to remember that they do both the innovation in the United States, the research, and the s

Industry committee  Yes, if you allow me to answer in English.

Industry committee  In the brief I talked about two examples, CRIAQ and the Structural Genomics Consortium. I was also the lead author on an OECD study looking at intellectual property and collaborative mechanisms in life sciences and intellectual property. I would be happy to send the link or the d

Industry committee  There are many aspects of the U.S. system. It's a very complex system. For example, concerning the rules around university funding through the Bayh-Dole Act, the part everybody concentrates on is the aspect whereby the universities have a commercialization mandate. The part we n

Industry committee  Thank you to the committee. It's always a pleasure, as an academic, to be able to talk to the people who allocate the funds to the research agencies that fund my research, and I'm happy to give back. I feel it's a part of our mission to assist government committees whenever poss

Agriculture committee  Sorry to jump in. There have been, actually, some good efforts. There's a science media centre that now exists in Ottawa. Preston Manning has his organization in the west. We in the research community have made greater efforts to communicate. I've participated in a science cafe

Agriculture committee  I think that's a cynical way to look at that. Most patents are never enforced, and they're not designed to be enforced. They basically are a sign to the world, “I have developed something, come work with me.” That's the best way to use a patent, not to enforce it. If you actually

Agriculture committee  Yes. My research group works extensively in Africa with some of the large centres and researchers, and there's an awful lot of interest in biotechnology. They see this as a way to deal with both health and their future food needs, and they're putting a lot of resources into it.