Evidence of meeting #61 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was universities.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Lawrence Hanson  Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Innovation, Department of Industry
John Knubley  Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
Mark Schaan  Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry
Alison McDermott  Director General, Program Coordination Branch, Department of Industry
Konstantinos Georgaras  Director General, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Corporate Strategies and Services Branch, Department of Industry

9:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Dreeshen.

You have five minutes.

9:35 a.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Thank you very much.

Just to come back a bit, you mentioned the $70 million that is there as far as added research is concerned. As I mentioned in my last question, we have $59.6 million that is from the National Research Council of Canada's numbers. Mitacs is down $7 million, and there is a cut of $1.7 million to the centres of excellence for commercialization and research program. You start to get into real money there as well, things that are in the main estimates and get moved around.

As someone who has a base in agriculture, I'm extremely happy to see the research dollars that are there. I disagree vehemently with the suggestion that those kinds of dollars and that kind of research and the research clusters were not there in the previous government. I think it's unfair to make those types of statements, in so many ways.

In your presentation, you talked about joining with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food at the Central Experimental Farm to announce $70 million to support agricultural discovery science and innovation in the country. Included in that then, we need to have some real discussions on agriculture about things like GMOs. Health Canada has to be taking a look at things like gluten-free diets, whereas 0.7% of the population has a problem with gluten, yet there is a fad such that 2% to 3% of people believe that they should be taking on these kinds of diets. Therefore, you have 1.3% to 2.3% of the population that is not benefiting from gluten.

Take a look at some of the science and some of the decisions that have been made regarding neonicotinoids. These are the kinds of things that make me a little bit concerned when I hear people talk about agricultural discovery science who don't live out there on the farms, on the ground, or see exactly what this does.

Yes, it's important, but where are the researchers? Are there researchers out there in western Canada who can take a look and actually talk about what neonicotinoids do and why it is that the guys who have bees want to make sure that their bees aren't out there where the canola is that is treated with that substance? There are reasons there, but we get caught up in a bunch of rhetoric that comes from people who just don't want to have a dandelion sprayed on their lawn in downtown Toronto.

Those are the concerns that I have. I really want us to make sure that when we talk about agricultural discovery science, it goes back to agriculture and the people who really recognize what is there. I see too much of, “Here's this fad. Here's that fad. Let's talk about this. Let's satisfy some other group,” whether it be in Europe, the U.S., or China. In reality, all that is happening is they're using these for trade irritants and causing problems there.

How can we be assured that our scientists are going to pay attention to the real part of science instead of getting caught up in this social science aspect of things?

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Thank you, Earl, for your question. You've highlighted a number of areas, so I will try to address them all.

Regarding the National Research Council, we're actually making an investment of $60 million in budget 2017 into the NRC, so that is an investment. On Mitacs we are making an investment of $221 million to the NRC. That will be for 10,000 work-integrated learning spaces. You've asked about social sciences, and then I'll come to agriculture.

Social sciences and humanities are incredibly important areas. When we talk about science, we include the natural sciences and engineering. We include the physical sciences and health sciences. We also include the social sciences and humanities, and the reason is that they help us understand who we are and how we relate to one another.

Now I'll come to agriculture—

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

I'll just quickly interrupt before you get to there, and there will be time.

I've said this so many times. It is the difference, though, between physical science and political science. The moment that a physical scientist will not say there is zero chance for something to happen, that's when the political scientists jump in and say, “Okay, great, that means you can't guarantee this” and that's what creates this situation where people go after agriculture. They go after people on the ground. It's happened in oil and gas, and it's happening in agriculture right now. If we don't pay attention to it and if we're not ahead of the game, we're going to have trouble. Going back to agriculture, then, please inform me.

9:40 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

I will remind this committee that we have a world-class peer review system in this country. The grant applications come forward, we fund the very best research, and we strongly support the social sciences and humanities.

On agriculture, I come back to this investment we made through the Canada first research excellence fund, the $900-million investment last September, and part of that investment was out in Saskatchewan for agriculture and agrifood.

I'll let my deputy minister finish.

9:45 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Industry

John Knubley

The honourable member and the chair will know that I am the former deputy minister of agriculture. I would like to indicate that, in doing the innovation agenda, I think we see a huge opportunity in terms of the agriculture sector. I think we are well aware of the high level of science that is in Canada in the agriculture sector. It really seems to be world leading. As the honourable member points out, we really want to take full advantage of it.

Just to the innovation agenda in particular, we've been asked to set up six sectoral tables, one of which is in agriculture and agrifood. Dominic Barton, in terms of the advisory council on economic growth, has put a great deal of emphasis on agriculture and the opportunities we really have in Canada to take fuller advantage of those markets that are growing in Asia and elsewhere in the world.

I'm looking forward to working with all of you towards improving the success of agriculture on the science side as well as on the commercialization side.

9:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Baylis.

You have five minutes.

May 16th, 2017 / 9:45 a.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello, Minister Duncan. Thank you for being here today.

My first question was going to touch on the excellent work that the University of Montreal is doing on AI, but I think you've answered that very well. I'll just point out that I think it's fantastic that we're making a strong investment there.

During one of the rounds of consultations we did in the pre-budget, I had a gentleman come to me and he was very adamant. “I'm in the high tech business“, he said, “and if you can give one message, teach kids to code.” He was very strong on that. I was very happy to see we had some money put aside in the budget. Can you elaborate on the amount of money and how you see that playing out?

9:45 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Thank you, Frank.

We really do want to create that culture of curiosity that Dr. Roberta Bondar talks about. That means investing in our children from elementary to high school and beyond. Some of the investments we make around the promotion of science. We really want to bring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to our youth and to everybody and include art and design in that, so there's $10.8 million for PromoScience in budget 2017. I've talked about the 600 events happening across the country right now. I'm really pleased that in budget 2017 there is investment for $50 million to teach grade school students to code. It is the language of the future.

9:45 a.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

In that same consultation, I had another businessman, who's actually an extremely successful businessman. He has a young daughter who's a scientist, and his frustration was her inability to get funding for her research. I see that's something you're looking at tackling. Could you touch upon that, too, please?

9:45 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Frank, I will just bring forward that we really are taking a different approach on science. The previous government cut science, cut scientists. It muzzled our scientists and funding was cut. This government is committed to research science and scientists, the important work they do, and evidence-based decision-making. The very first act of this government was to reinstate the long-form census. Why? Because we want science, evidence, and fact at the heart of decision-making.

The second act was to unmuzzle our scientists. In the spring, we brought forward a new communications policy that would reinforce that scientists can speak in an official capacity without being designated. They could speak publicly where they have scientific and technical expertise or responsibility. We're taking a different approach, and that's the same when it comes to equity and diversity.

I mentioned that these targets for equity and diversity, for example, in the Canada research chairs, have been in place since 2006. Universities were not held to account. That's going to change with our putting in place those diversity and equity plans, and saying there is the possibility that funding will be withheld. I do not want to go across the country and hear comments from women researchers such as “Do I have a child or do I have an academic career?” Having a child is risky. Wearing a larger lab coat for seven months to hide a pregnancy should not be happening. We want all people to have a chance at our research funding.

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC

A lot of that unmuzzling of science and that drive towards a more scientific approach, I see wrapped up in the chief science officer, that position you're creating. Can you elaborate on how you see that position playing a role in promoting science and a scientific approach?

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

As you know, part of my mandate letter was to create a chief science officer. I'm happy that on December 5, 2016, we launched the search for Canada's chief science adviser. This position was cancelled under the previous government. A chief science adviser will ensure that government science is made available to Canadians, that government scientists can speak freely about their work, and that scientific analyses will inform decision-making.

There's an open competition. That competition closed on February 13. This person will advise the Prime Minister, the Minister of Science, and the cabinet. As well, cabinet can come back to the chief science adviser and give charges to him or her. We hope to have this person in place by the spring. This is really exciting. We know one person isn't going to change the system, but it will be important to build that advisory role going forward.

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

Mr. Masse, you have the final two minutes.

9:50 a.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again, Minister, for your input.

I want to get to the social sciences, but, again, I guess I would implore upon your government to look at Bill C-25. This is act that is amending the Canada Business Corporations Act. Part 1, in particular, deals with the structure of corporate boards and governance, and the inclusion of women and persons with disabilities. The bill shied away from actually defining “human rights”. It wouldn't even comment on what a human right was with regard to racial equality. Secondly, it didn't address the issue of gender by including the word “gender” in the bill.

Lastly, it's moving to a model called “comply or explain”, which, the way that the legislation is written, if you follow the legislation after we finish it, at the very best you're looking at probably seven years in the time duration before it can actually be reviewed once it's actually passed. You're probably at up to 10 years from this date in terms of reviewing that legislation from the time we pass it in the House of Commons. Because you have a majority and you do have a lot of allies looking to change that, I would implore your government to reach out to those allies who want to actually make the bill relevant, because you're now doing this in your own department, under this initiative, with the universities.

With my remaining time, I will ask this in particular and pass it over to you. Social sciences and the humanities again have come up. We've heard a lot of discussion about it. Are you making any efforts, or is the government doing any work to bridge the social sciences and the humanities to some of the work of trying to privatize or bring ideas to market, so, more of the hard sciences for innovation? Are you doing anything with the social sciences and the humanities to help in that? That seems to be a lost piece of the puzzle for getting items to the marketplace, ideas to production, so to speak?

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Thank you, Brian, for highlighting the importance of the social sciences and the humanities.

There is a large gap between the funding that goes to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. I hope people noticed in budget 2016 that I started to close that gap because social sciences matter. It matters because it's talking about people, whether understanding how we relate to one another or how our societies operate, but also when one wants to commercialize, you need to understand people and the social sciences can be of real help there.

9:50 a.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you.

9:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

Thank you very much.

On that, we will end our session. Minister Duncan, thank you very much for coming to our committee today, as well as your colleagues.

We're going to break for a very strict two minutes while we switch over. We'll suspend for the moment.

Thank you very much for coming.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Thank you.

9:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

We're back for part two. I have a couple of housekeeping notes. We are a little short on time. Our guests will do their briefings, then I think the best thing to do, rather than going with seven-seven-seven, is to keep your time short if you have questions and we'll try to address it that way, if that's okay with the committee.

Finally, I want to remind everybody that on Thursday, we have Minister Chagger for the first hour and Minister Bains for the second hour. I'm going to ask that we keep our preambles short. Today, we went over because we had preambles and I try to leave the minister to answer questions. I will have to be a lot more strict or else, on Thursday, we won't get through it and I want to make sure that we do. Make sure that you keep your preambles short and we have to stick to the time because there will be a break in there. You are forewarned.

Go ahead, Ben.

10 a.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

Did you send a message to Minister Bains and Minister Chagger to omit their preamble as well? Today, you may have noticed that every time Minister Duncan started to speak, she didn't provide an answer but she provided much preamble. I agree that, if the members keep their preamble to a minimum and just ask a question and the ministers keep their preamble to a minimum, it works well for both. It can't be a one-way street.

I know you talk to them a lot. If you could advise them of that from good old Ben, that would be appreciated.

Thank you.

10 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy

I will keep that in mind.

Once again, I cannot control what comes out of the witness' testimony, but I will cut people off. I'm just forewarning you or else we won't get through it on Thursday. That's where we are.

We now have.... I will remind everybody that we're not televised. The first hour was televised, but we are in public right now.

This morning we have from the Department of Industry, Mark Schaan, director general, marketplace framework policy branch, strategic policy sector; Konstantinos Georgaras, director general, Canadian intellectual property office, corporate strategies and services branch; and Alison McDermott, director general, program coordination branch.

Today, we're getting a technical briefing on intellectual property and tech transfer in Canada.

Mr. Schaan, the floor is yours.

10 a.m.

Mark Schaan Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Strategic Policy Sector, Department of Industry

Good morning. It's nice to be back.

My name is Mark Schaan, as you have just heard, and I'm the director general of the marketplace framework policy branch at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Along with me are my colleagues, Alison McDermott and Konstantinos Georgaras, who also have interests on the technology transfer and intellectual property administration side.

To start off our presentation, I'll provide a brief overview of our intellectual property laws and of how they benefit our marketplace frameworks.

Then, my colleague from the science and innovation sector will provide more details regarding the relationship between IP and universities, and technology transfer in the post-secondary sector.

Finally, my colleague from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, or CIPO, will provide an overview of CIPO’s mandate and responsibilities and some information regarding public sector patenting activity.

First, just to put our IP laws in the broader policy context, they are considered to be key marketplace framework laws in Canada. We recognize that they play a critical role in encouraging innovation, attracting investment, and supporting other key drivers of the Canadian economy.

As you can see from the statistics, Canada has a decent track record when it comes to our marketplace frameworks. That said, we know we need to do better, particularly in the use of IP by firms. IP laws create terms of protection enshrining public and private rights.

As you see, copyrights protect original creative works, such as books, movies, music, and video games. Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 70 years for sound recording. Patents protect novel inventions, such as advancements in technology, pharmaceuticals, and processes. Patents last for 20 years from filing.

Trademarks promote certainty in the marketplace by protecting distinctive branding used in commerce, such as a logo, a slogan, or brand names that distinguish the goods and services of one person or organization from those of others. Once amendments to the Trade-marks Act come into force, a trademark registration will last 10 years, renewable indefinitely for additional 10-year periods.

Industrial designs protect product designs, such as the shape of a lamp or the design of a chair. Once the amendments to the Industrial Design Act come into force, industrial design rights will last the later of either 10 years from the date of registration or 15 years from the date of filing. These rights prevent others from using, copying, selling, or manufacturing without authorization of rights holders.

IP laws establish the requirements to obtain or challenge the rights, their use, length, and scope of protection, and the administration governing the granting, registration, and maintenance of IP rights. IP rights are domestic but are anchored in treaties, which set minimal requirements.

Canada’s IP regime has three main objectives. The first is to support innovation and enable innovators to extract value from their creations and recoup investments. The second is to ensure Canadians have access to a wide range of innovative products, new technologies, and new goods and services. The third is to promote consumers' confidence in the marketplace.

Well-functioning marketplace frameworks generate positive outcomes for Canadians. They provide incentives for innovation and creativity; ensure access to the latest technologies and ideas; foster competition; promote confidence in the marketplace; and balance competing stakeholder interests as well as the common good.

IP-intensive industries are key drivers of the Canadian economy. As this chart shows, the orange bar demonstrates that they account for almost 14% of all jobs in Canada and more than 25% of our GDP. About 40% of all Canadian exports are from IP-intensive industries. We know that SMEs that own IP are more like to grow to scale and have a greater propensity to export. For example, SMEs that hold formal IP are four times more likely to export, 64% more likely to be high-growth, and 32% more likely to seek financing.

Canada has made strides to improve and align its IP regime with those of our international partners. For example, we introduced amendments to ratify the CETA agreement, which included an additional period of protection for eligible pharmaceutical patents.

In 2016 Canada played a leading international role in intellectual property. Canada amended its Copyright Law to implement and accede to the Marrakesh treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print-disabled. Canada was the critical 20th country needed to bring the treaty into force internationally.

Our agenda for 2017 is very ambitious. We know that there will be a parliamentary review of the Copyright Act. The five-year review is mandated by section 92 of the Copyright Act, which requires that Parliament review the Copyright Act every five years. Five-year reviews are intended to ensure that the act remains responsive to changes in technology.

Budget 2017 also announced that the government will develop a new comprehensive intellectual property strategy over the coming year. This strategy will help ensure that Canada's intellectual property regime is modern and robust and supports commercializing Canadian innovations in the 21st century.

The purpose of the IP strategy is to support the objectives of the innovation and skills plan—namely, fostering an ecosystem that supports businesses to grow to scale. The strategy will work to do this by ensuring that the IP regime is efficient, that it fosters innovation, and that firms have the awareness and incentive to strategically use IP to grow and compete.

With that I'll turn it to my colleague, Alison.

10:05 a.m.

Alison McDermott Director General, Program Coordination Branch, Department of Industry

Great. Thank you, Mark.

As mentioned, I'm the director general within ISED's science and innovation sector. We work closely with the granting councils and the post-secondary education sector.

Mark has started off with a good overview of the overarching context for IP. In my remarks I will try to narrow in on the topic of IP and technology transfer in the post-secondary education sector.

I prepared my remarks in English, but I would be happy to answer questions asked in French.

Post-secondary institutions serve a variety of important functions, including training, the creation of scientific knowledge, and the transfer of that knowledge to those best placed to put it to use. We'll call that “technology transfer”.

IP protection is an important component of technology transfer because it allows academic researchers to publish their research while still providing industrial partners with the incentive to commercialize. Technology transfer offices—we'll call them TTOs—facilitate technology transfer activities at universities and colleges. These can be as varied as managing IP, developing and supporting partnerships between academia and knowledge users, and supporting entrepreneurship and company growth. Universities and colleges play different roles in the mobilization of knowledge, with university research often driven by researcher and student curiosity, and college applied research driven largely by industry needs.

As we've been asked to be brief, in this presentation, I'll focus on university technology transfer.

The Government of Canada provides support for technology transfer through the federal granting agencies, NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR, including many programs designed to encourage post-secondary and private sector research collaborations. These seek to bring a wide range of research and technical expertise to bear on specific industrial challenges. These are also about exposing researchers to these industry needs.

These include several NSERC programs under the NSERC strategy for partnerships and innovation; the tri-council business-led networks of centres of excellence and the centres of excellence for commercialization and research programs, generally known as the BL-NCE and the CECR programs; as well as the Mitacs scientific internship program, which received significant sums of money in the last budget. Many of these programs include the training of highly qualified personnel as another means to help ensure knowledge is also mobilized into the workforce.

I'll mention another program, the research support fund, formerly known as the indirect costs program for those familiar with that. This is a tri-agency program that provides Canadian post-secondary institutions with support to help them defray the indirect costs of research that is funded by the federal granting councils. Under this program, the Government of Canada directly supports costs related to technology transfer, including the creation, expansion, and maintenance of a TTO, and costs associated with IP protection and supporting industry partnerships.

Metrics are an ongoing challenge in technology transfer. There are no available metrics that fully capture the economic impact of technology activities at post-secondary institutions on a national scale. Instead, we tend to follow narrower outcomes related to IP, which are the easiest to measure. You will hear talk of and we'll keep track of things such as patents, licences, start-ups created, and licensing revenue generated.

There can be some downsides associated with the focus on those kinds of metrics, dangers that TTOs can sometimes be pushed to chase those kinds of metrics, sometimes at the cost of the quality of the broader objective of transferring technology.

The majority of Canadian university TTOs, when last asked, suggested that these common IP metrics, while the best that we have in some ways, don't effectively measure the full extent of what they do in their offices. That also reflects some evolution that's taken place in recent years over the way TTOs work. Many of them are now more focused on other technology transfer outcomes that are not IP-related but better suited to advance the Canadian economy in the long run. These are things like forming academic industrial partnerships and transfer through HQP, highly qualified personnel, of skills to the workplace.

In terms of IP ownership policies, there is no national uniform policy governing IP. I know this is an issue you're interested in. Provincial governments have the jurisdiction to set IP policy at post-secondary institutions. The majority of these will actually defer to the institutions to set their own policies, which in turn are often embedded in faculty collective agreements.

This has led to an overall diversity of approaches to intellectual property protection policies, which can be more or less summarized in two broad approaches. There are the inventor-owned policies and the university-owned policies. Both of them are associated with high-quality technology transfer outcomes, or they can be. Some universities have a policy that contains features of both. We refer to this as the joint ownership approach, where both the inventor and the institution share IP rights.

With respect to federally funded research, the granting councils do not require institutions to follow any particular IP policy. With respect to community colleges, the role of applied research in Canadian colleges is to help solve an industry problem. Canadian colleges normally do not own their IP. It remains with the industrial partner.

In terms of a comparison of IP ownership models, for a university that adopts an inventor-owned IP policy, the research or inventor has the right to decide whether to sign over his or her IP to an industrial partner. Some of the advantages of this approach are that it can be highly motivating for academics. It encourages them to get more actively involved in the commercialization of their research. It also gives them flexibility to adjust to the licensing preferences of the firm that they're dealing with. In contrast, a TTO may be constrained by broader institutional policies.

On the downside, the success of this approach can be highly dependent on the individual concerned and whether they have the kinds of skills, the ability, and the motivation to commercialize their IP and/or launch a successful start-up. This model assumes that researchers are motivated by the concept of capturing monetary benefits from the results of their research. It can also increase the complexity of negotiating licensing agreements due often to the inventor's lack of experience in this area.

Now we'll look at the university-owned ownership model. For a university that adopts a university-owned IP policy, the university has the right to sell or retain the inventor's IP once it's disclosed. Some advantages of this policy are that it seeks to simplify the process of commercializing and licensing by centralizing ownership and taking maximum advantage of the expertise in the TTO. It also gives universities flexibility to pool the licensing of relevant IP that may have been invented by different researchers from diverse fields. They might package different patents together and sell them to an appropriate company that could take advantage of that. This policy recognizes that researchers may not have the interest or expertise to further develop and commercialize their intellectual property independently.

On the downside, this kind of policy can create a barrier to technology transfer when university TTOs, many of which operate on cost-recovery models, sometimes tend to overvalue IP in terms of trying to maximize their financial benefits. TTOs can also be less nimble and have less flexibility to adjust to the licensing preferences of an individual firm than an inventor would, or a single person would. Inventors may be less inclined under this policy to be involved in this critical stage of developing the technology towards commercialization. This is the counter-side of the motivation issue that was mentioned in the inventor-owned model.

We have some examples of international experience. There's a lot of interest in the United States, where IP ownership rights for government-funded university research have been governed by the Bayh-Dole Act since 1980. This act essentially states that the rights to inventions resulting from federally funded research belong exclusively to universities and are subject to a number of obligations regarding disclosure and royalty sharing.

The Bayh-Dole Act has often been seen as an important catalyst for the increases in patenting and licensing activity that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. It's hard to say unambiguously that this is responsible for that in the sense that this strong, upward trend in patenting and licensing did begin before the implementation of the act. You could attribute many elements of this increase to other factors, for example, the broader scope of patentable inventions, and the fact that there was an increasing propensity to patent over this time, and just the nature of technological progress that took place in certain fields. Bio-medical sciences, for example, really picked up a lot in the eighties and nineties.

Other countries, such as the U.K., Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Norway, all maintain a university-owned IP model. In Australia, as in Canada, universities are able to develop their own policies. The majority of these use a university-owned IP model. Italy and Sweden use a professor-privilege IP policy in which IP ownership remains with the inventor.

Overall, we would say there's little evidence that the policy governing who owns the IP rights of an innovation has an overriding impact on the success of technology transfer between institutions and industry as measured by the volume of patents and licences. As mentioned before, there are successful examples of both models of ownership. I'll give you a couple of examples. The University of Waterloo is often cited as an example of an inventor-owned policy that's very effective. UBC would be an example of a university-owned model that works very well. They're both considered to be leaders from a technology transfer perspective.

Other factors that are often pointed to as contributing to the success of technology transfer would include things like how many resources a university puts towards its technology transfer office and towards these activities in general, and the quality of contractual agreements. As well, overall the level of education and awareness about the importance of intellectual property protection and commercialization, as well as overall culture, are seen as very important. Waterloo is an example of a university in which there is a strong culture of entrepreneurship that supports and values technology transfer, and that culture has a strong influence as well.

Some other channels of technology transfer can be arguably as important or more important than IP licensing. As mentioned before, there is this idea of movement of people, students in particular, from universities to the private sector or public sectors and the know-how they bring with them. Company creation is another mechanism. There is publication of research results and interactions through things like meetings and conferences. We mentioned the Mitacs internships that create connections between universities and firms, and there are just general research partnerships and co-operative research centres.

I'm going to turn it over to Konstantinos now.

10:15 a.m.

Konstantinos Georgaras Director General, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Corporate Strategies and Services Branch, Department of Industry

Thank you very much.

Hello. My name is Konstantinos Georgaras.

I'm from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, a special operating agency of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. We are responsible for the administration of the intellectual property acts and the registration of IP.

I'd like to give you a brief overview of some of the counts and trends in IP and do a deeper dive into where the technologies are coming from and what those technology areas look like, where the collaboration is happening, and then finally give you a debriefing on interactions we've had with technology transfer offices to identify the barriers they have in using the IP system and what we are doing to address it.

As my colleagues have mentioned, there are a number of broader objectives for research and technology transfer, and not all of these discoveries will make it to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, rather we see a smaller subset in patenting. In our overall applications, we receive about 100,000 IP applications per year. In 2015 there were 37,000 patent applications and 22,000 patents were granted. If you look at Canadian universities patenting in our office at CIPO, the University of Alberta, for example, had 27 patent applications in fiscal year 2015-16.

Again, this is just applications in Canada. If we look at where Canadians and universities file for patents, you will see that most Canadians will file outside Canada. The top blue line on this chart represents all Canadians, and it shows that about 13,000 patent applications were made in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2014. If you look at the green line, there were about 4,000 patent applications by Canadians in Canada, so about three-quarters of the applicants will go to the U.S. first, and that's a business decision. Likewise, if you look at the red and purple lines, that represents university filings, and it's the same proportion. About three-quarters of universities will file in the States.

We conducted what is called IT analytics. This allows us to dig deeper into the data that's provided in the patent applications, and here you see the spread of technology that Canadian universities are patenting worldwide. You can see this landscape of peaks and valleys. The snow-capped peaks represent the specialty areas in which Canadian universities are filing for patents. Two to highlight are alkyl and optical light beams, for example, and I'll get back to that. That's the general landscape, if you will, of technology that Canadian universities are patenting.

Now we'll look at just one university, so we can go deeper. Here, looking at McGill, for example, in the last 15 years they filed for 273 patents in Canada. Worldwide they filed for 758. When we look at the patent applications, we can unbundle where the collaborations are happening, and I understand that is an initiative this committee is interested in looking at—where the collaboration is happening. In 52% of these worldwide patent applications that McGill pursued over the last 15 years, over half of them had collaborations with other universities and companies. We did the same thing for UBC, but let's skip forward.

If you dig even deeper into the patent data, you can identify where the collaboration is happening. Here at the University of Ottawa this is a collaboration map looking at optical transmission and communication systems, and you can see how these patents are coming forward as collaborative applications with the University of Ottawa and companies such as X-Ray Optical Systems or Spectalis Corp., as well as Harvard and Waterloo universities. Once you start digging deeper and deeper into the data, you can see where the collaboration is happening.

Now let me step back. At CIPO our mandate is to support innovation and help pull through the ideas once they come to our office. We tried to better understand some of the challenges that technology transfer offices and universities were facing in applying for IP, and they identified five key challenges. There is a fifth one that is not on this slide, but I'll start with that: cost. Clearly technology transfer offices have to make business decisions as to what they pursue to patent. Our office provides a 50% discount to university applicants. It's our contribution to help reduce costs for the university applicant.

A second issue that came up was the issue around awareness and education. We heard throughout, from technology transfer offices and the community around universities, that there's a need for awareness of how to effectively use IP. With that, CIPO is launching very extensive work on developing educational programs and material for IP strategy. We have something called IP case studies. We work with students in universities to help them understand IP, as they're part of the spin-off, if you will, for university discovery.

A third element that came up in terms of a barrier or a challenge that universities face, is, as I mentioned earlier, that three-quarters will file outside of Canada. There was the issue of harmonization internationally. CIPO is working very hard to implement some international IP treaties, and we're targeting 2019 for them to come into force. This will help to ensure that there's a harmonized system, and it will help facilitate IP filing in Canada and abroad.

A fourth element was trying to understand the breadth of technology and what's coming forward. What we're doing, and I demonstrated earlier through IP analytics, is trying to show where the technologies are coming up. That helps identify the collaboration. This type of information can help inform professors, technology transfers, where the collaboration can happen.

The final element was really directed at the office itself. Our databases are lacking, and we are working hard to modernize them. We have done quite a bit over the last few months to bring more information forward to users.

To sum up, you've seen some of the trends. We've done a deep dive into the technology areas. We are taking action at CIPO, for those coming to our door, to help facilitate their applications going forward.

I'll wrap up with that.