Okay. Sorry about that.
As I was saying, the patent system in the world is gradually becoming more uniform. There used to be two significant differences—a first-to-file process versus first-to-invent—and those of course had very serious implications. They are becoming more uniform, but it still begs the question, where is the place that you want to start? That will differ depending on the technology, on its applications, and so on.
One of the real challenges, or a bigger challenge, I would say, is whether to file at all, and whether patents are the right way. As soon as you file a patent, effectively you're publishing what you know. Then reverse engineering kicks in, and you have to make a decision about whether you really want that to happen or whether you want to try to black-box the technology and really maintain it and embed it somehow in ways that you can protect through trade secrets. You can still license trade secrets, but the beauty is that they don't have to be disclosed. You can license their use as opposed to the secret itself.
This becomes a very complex problem. The closer to market, the more problematical it is, actually, because the other side, of course, is that the user communities are different as well, and different sectors are very different. Those who are associated with the B.C. industry are adamant about owning and having control and various other things.
Most established industries are much more pragmatic. Oftentimes they'll try to leave ownership in an organization like an NRC because they think the management of the use is perhaps improved for the industry that way, as long as there are reasonable protections that allow them to kind of have first right to—