Industry committee  Can I just add to this? A couple of years ago I met an entrepreneur from the Saguenay in Quebec who had a small electronics business and who had gotten patents and had later made a lot of money selling those patents to IBM. She wrote a book and did a tour across Quebec to explain to entrepreneurs.

Industry committee  It's a barrier to some extent, but there are options to accelerate the process. Patent applicants can request—I think there may be an extra cost—that the process go faster, I think. Some would like to see it faster; others are okay with that duration. Probably with more staff they could reduce the cost.

Industry committee  The sample would certainly be smaller, and as I said, proportionately we don't patent as much in Canada and so on, so it's hard to tell. The sample they used in that study was 43,000 start-ups getting a first patent. In Canada, the total number of patents delivered in a year is around 37,000 or 38,000.

Industry committee  It's certainly a sector that is also patenting, but I'm not sure what more I can tell you.

Industry committee  CIPO is an agency of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and IPIC is a professional association. IPIC's members are the agents who represent clients before CIPO and advocate on behalf of clients to obtain patents, trademarks, or industrial designs. CIPO hires examiners.

Industry committee  —but I haven't seen that number.

Industry committee  The patent agent profession grew generally out of Ottawa first, because that's where the patent and trademark office was located. Before the Internet, everything was done on paper. You'd go to the office and search. Today the profession is across the country. We have many members in B.C., mostly in Vancouver, but some in Victoria as well, and so on.

Industry committee  Sorry, I don't have that information. The report we had on the U.K. gave simply the statistics on its use. In terms of other information I can give you, though, I looked up what Quebec budgeted for its innovation box starting in January. I think they expect that about $150 million will be their cost over five years in terms of tax income they lose, but this hasn't started yet, so—

Industry committee  I have not seen it. I will admit that this is certainly an unknown part of the equation. The idea, of course, is that you're encouraging innovation, you're encouraging commercialization, in the hope that you're encouraging growth—

Industry committee  I don't have that information. They may have it at the intellectual property office. We could look it up and get back to you.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Okay. We'd be happy to.

Industry committee  We talked, for example, about innovation bucks that exist in a number of countries—China, the U.K., France, and so on. They're incentivizing commercialization, getting the IP, commercializing the R and D, and so on. That is one aspect. China also has a broader range of grants in terms of IP.

Industry committee  I don't have exact statistics on that. It's possible that they are available at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Generally we know that Canada is lower in patenting than most countries. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce produces a report on innovation. There's a comparison of countries, and the three main markets are the United States, Japan, and the EU, and more and more in China.

Industry committee  Okay, sorry. We're not suggesting that. It's just a matter of fact, because patent and trademark agents are created by a federal statute. The other day at the annual meeting, we made an analogy by saying, “You can choose your friends, but you don't choose your family.” I'm not an agent, but patent and trademark agents were born in the federal family.