Industry committee  That's a nice easy question.

Industry committee  I'll take my cue from the chair and first of all thank you personally, in this public forum, for your ongoing support of Research In Motion. I know you're a great advocate for us, and we really appreciate it. To that extent, too, Mr. Regan, I know you speak up for us, on our beh

Industry committee  I know that there are some administrative things in CIPO that Robert would like to address.

Industry committee  That's a tough question. It's incumbent upon every company to protect their own intellectual property and their own computer systems. People are starting to realize cybersecurity and cyberespionage are the new frontier in terms of the way some state governments are operating. O

Industry committee  There are certain companies that may take part in activities that give the impression that they are patent trolls. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not they are. In Canada the system, from that point of view, is good. We don't see the huge cases that we have in the U.S.

Industry committee  First, let me say you have a very illustrious committee with everyone carrying a BlackBerry. I am very impressed with that one. We mentioned bad patent regimes earlier. Certainly the U.S. is the prime example of where companies are suing each other. It's more of a way of keepin

Industry committee  It cuts our support by a third.

Industry committee  It's been a lot. We were a recipient of an early IRAP grant when they were above the bagel shop, and there was a TPC grant back in the 1990s, which was a very good investment by the government. I sign off on the royalty cheque every year, so I know it was a good investment. I wis

Industry committee  Sure. I think the story is fairly well known that one of our co-founders, Mike Lazaridis, actually left the university before he graduated, but he did go back to be the chancellor; I think that counts for something.

Industry committee  In terms of what services were offered then compared with now, it's totally night and day. People are starting to realize the value of—pardon the term that's used a lot—collaboration, in the true sense of the term. Some of the things you're seeing now, in present-day supports, in

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Certainly when the patents went, it was a wake-up call for many people, not just in Canada but across the globe, to the value of patents. You're seeing patent litigation in the U.S., and people are starting to realize their value. As I said to Mr. Regan, it's always incumbent u

Industry committee  Many people have the preconceived idea that we just hire engineering co-op students. Of course, we don't; we bring them from the whole gamut. What do we expect them to do? We're not giving them the mundane, run-of-the-road jobs that you would get an office person per se to do.

Industry committee  First of all, there's no easy answer to that question. Companies are always answerable to their shareholders. Second, the government also has to answer to the public and balance those needs. In terms of the Nortel patents, along with some of our competitors, we were part of th

Industry committee  Sure. Not to pick on anyone, but NRC is a great example. If you go to the CIPO patent listings, you can see everyone who has filed a patent. There's a little check box that allows you to see whether it's available for licensing. Usually the government-developed technology is not