Thank you for the question.
I think CIPO did submit in their documentation that one of the issues they're facing is outreach and getting to the community with the information they have. There are multiple organizations around the country, and a lot of them are of a national nature, like ITAC, which would present information technology across Canada. Open Text is our member.
To reach the large constituents.... Of our membership, 65% are SMEs. We do have a fairly active SME outreach, and we run several programs in each of the provinces and territories.
If CIPO wants to get the information out about how and what needs to be done, just from a knowledge point of view, one way to do it is to use the associations to get the information out. Often it could be done through a portal. I'll give you an example in this case. A similar thing happened with EDC, for example. EDC does serve our SMEs significantly when they do overseas business, but their reach is limited because they are all inbound calls. We are in fact working with EDC to establish a portal so they can have a push to the community in terms of what they offer.
We're of the belief, in ITAC's current management and in the board of directors, that a big part of the issue in Canada is that we need to connect these separate dots that are out there. Everybody is trying to do good things in goodwill, but the dots are not necessarily connected properly. So if we can connect some of these pieces to reach out to the community, we can add a tremendous value, even on a consultation. If you run a forum in New Brunswick, CIPO could be one of the guest speakers, or they could have their portal and local community entrepreneurs could come and see what they need to do, because the patent process in Canada is very complex.
As the colleague here mentioned, the searches you have to go through, whether it's an infringement search, a prior art search—there are a bunch of searches. It is a very complex process. Smaller companies often cannot do that, and they struggle. By the time they get something done...post-revenue, it's very hard. So there is room to collaborate and get the information out through the associations.