Industry committee  in 2001, Canada signed the Patent Law Treaty. These additional safety nets and that flexibility are most definitely desirable. We have never been so close to the goal. We are definitely being supported. Everyone is confident—and I would like to emphasize once again that we are wo

Industry committee  We will have to work on regulations that will support and complete the act. At the same time, we are working to modify our computer systems, improve our processes and document our practices. Internally, we already have a very rigorous action plan in place. Obviously, we are not

Industry committee  If you'd allow me to mention, up until late 1989 the Patent Act had restrictions. There was restricted patenting of an invention that has an illicit object in view. At the time when we amended the Patent Act in 1989, the legislator decided to remove this requirement, which was, t

Industry committee  If I may talk about one of the benefits that we have under the PLT, it's that Canadian patents won't be invalidated on the basis that there have been administrative errors during the prosecution while an application is pending. For example, if a fee or a technicality is missed du

Industry committee  If I may, I would like to add the notion that ratifying those treaties is adding safety nets for the applicants. By doing that, we minimize the risk of applicants, including, of course, small and medium-sized businesses, to lose rights if, for example, they don't comply fully wit

Industry committee  Presently, we're not planning to reduce the fee to file a patent application but applicants will now be able to do certain actions themselves that they were not allowed to in the past. For example, now they will be able to pay their maintenance fee themselves. It's a real benefit

Industry committee  No, I don't have opening remarks, but certainly I can provide more detailed information and I'll make sure I make reference to clauses when answering.

Industry committee  When we implemented the system with the request for examination in 1990, it was seven years. We reduced it to five years in 2004.

Industry committee  As Mr. Laporte said, it was to reduce the period of uncertainty and to make sure that—based on what we had observed during those years—those applications are examined in a timely manner.

Industry committee  It could potentially.

Industry committee  I'll give you an idea of the process. An applicant files in Canada and applications are laid open 18 months after. So the information on the invention is open to the public. But at that time the patent is pending, so there's some uncertainty as to whether or not it's going to end

Industry committee  It's required under the act that the invention be described to allow a person skilled in the art to reproduce it. It is very important, in fact, to make sure that people in the field with sufficient knowledge can reproduce the application.

Industry committee  Again, it's incremental. It depends. They're minor improvements.... Each case is different. What happens, also, is that the licensing discussion can happen. So if you incrementally improve an invention, you may be able to use that improved invention based on the agreement you hav