It is important to remember that CRIAQ is a network. For each project, there are at least two industrial partners and two research partners, in this case two universities or research centres. The project is developed within a team. On average, the projects include three or four small or large businesses, as well as three or four universities or research centres, if not more. The intellectual property that is developed is shared, but since the needs are expressed mainly by the large businesses, whereas the SMEs have access to this intellectual property at the end of the project, the results are gathered and used by the medium and large businesses, with the goal being to become more competitive on the market.
As for challenges related to intellectual property, it is always good to define things properly at the outset. That is why our intellectual property agreement enables us to lay the proper groundwork. There was no significant debate. There always is when the project is in development, but once the project is done, there aren't any problems.
Universities are first in line to request the patent. If they do not wish to, the business can. Even if the university does do it, the businesses have a licence that is free, universal and so on. So there is no debate over determining who owns the patent or intellectual property.
I'll give you a concrete example. A business recently requested a patent in relation to one of its projects. After one year, since the deadline was nearing, someone from the university called me to say that those participants would like to get the product back to eventually continue to develop it. I phoned the president of the SME, who told me that they did not intend to push the technology any further. So the university will continue to develop it.
I think it is important to specify that the relationship isn't bilateral, but multipartite. In fact, several partners share the intellectual property. An SME that is part of a project will be able to fully benefit from it, just like the large and medium businesses and all the other participants.