Ms. Lank, I'm from Burlington, not too far from Kitchener-Waterloo. There's a company I've visited a number of times, a manufacturer. They're privately held, but they're not in the software business. They actually make a bearing for large ships. They refuse to have their bearing patented because they don't want anybody to see how they do it. Even for a politician like me going through their plant, they put up a curtain around where the Ph.D.s are doing their work. The formula that makes the bearings and the materials the bearings are made from are important to them.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but your advice to them is they should be patenting that as a protection against others trying to steal it. Their view is that as soon as they patent it, the formula will be public, and somebody will tinker with it enough to get around the patent and be a competitor head-on and will produce virtually the same product. Are they right or are they wrong? What's your view?