Certainly, and thanks for the question.
To clarify, this view comes from our portfolio companies, the SMEs that are trying to commercialize these technologies. Of course, we work very collaboratively with universities—they are members of our consortia—and we encourage that going forward.
What we hear about is how complex and difficult it is for the entrepreneurs. It seems that every time it's a one-off, so while we agree that it would be very difficult, given the history, to sort of standardize and harmonize the procedures across Canadian universities, efforts to make it simpler and more efficient, I think, could be implemented on a case-by-case basis, and we would encourage that.
Part of that, potentially, is around the incentives, around the tech transfer offices within the universities. It's sort of like a “no one got fired for buying IBM” type of thing. Similarly, no one got fired for putting the can on a potential technology that didn't get spun out.
If it does get spun out and the university doesn't get their fair share, and it ends up being a big winner, then it looks as though someone hasn't done their job properly. If there were more of an incentive to get these technologies spun out more effectively so that there was a portfolio approach—if there were some winners and some losers, and that was part of the accepted procedure—maybe these could happen a bit more efficiently and there could be a bit more volume, because, as I think Rob mentioned, sometimes by the time you get these things spun out and patented, the market's moved by.