Industry Committee on May 16th, 2017

[Mark Schaan]

Great.

Just quickly before we get to your questions, I want to note that where we indicated that provincial governments have jurisdiction to set IP policy, we should be clear that IP policy and IP legislation are constitutionally federal, but education is provincial. When we talk about those IP policies, we mean university-owned versus inventor-owned.

We're very interested in your questions. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you so much for this extremely detailed technical briefing. It will help us. Because we are public, we can request that this be entered into the study if we want to, and we can call them back.

We don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to go down the speakers list that we have. Please keep it short so everybody has a chance to ask at least one question.

Lloyd, you're first.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

Thanks for a fantastic presentation here this morning.

In the short time we have, you mentioned the development of the IP strategy in 2017. Our committee is looking at getting into this study. At what point is your study going to need input? We don't want to miss the train.

[Mark Schaan]

You'll have seen in budget 2017 that the commitment was for a comprehensive national strategy within a year. We are looking and working closely with Minister Bains and his office to help him undertake that strategy and lay it out. Given that it is aimed at being comprehensive, I think the sooner the better is obviously great, because we're in the thick of working on some of the ideas now. We're very much aiming to try to have something within that year deadline at the latest.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

We're getting into our mid-year break when we go back to our constituency offices. Is the fall too late?

[Mark Schaan]

The fall as an input would be quite useful. If the fall was the beginning of your study, I think that would be challenging.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's helpful. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Earl.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

Of course, as you may be aware, we just came back from Washington, D.C., and we were talking about intellectual property and that type of thing there. One of the things that was brought up was patent trolls. I think, Konstantinos, that has to do with the education, the awareness, and so on, although there are a bunch of other things.

From your perspective, can you let us know what that is and how you feel that governments or universities might be able to protect themselves? Some of us heard what was going on there, but could we all get a feel for that?

[Konstantinos Georgaras]

I'll start the response, and then I can turn to my colleague on the policy issues.

With regard to patent trolls, we've been looking at this very closely over the last few years. What we have determined from an IP office perspective is that the more challenging issues are largely focused in technology areas such as software, and that seems to be concentrated more in the United States. We patent software differently here in Canada, and we are not noticing the same kind of trolling activity here. In fact, it's very limited.

That said, as I mentioned, most Canadians will be filing in the United States. Anything we can do to help inform them of the market, whether it's the U.S. or other markets, that is our job, to bring that to light.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Before you go on, could you explain what patent trolling is so that everybody knows and it's not just a term?

[Konstantinos Georgaras]

I'll turn to my colleague.

[Mark Schaan]

I'll be super brief.

There's an important distinction to be made. There are non-practising entities, or NPEs, that essentially have patent portfolios or IP portfolios that they use for the purposes of extolling rents—licences or otherwise. I would make a distinction between an NPE and a troll.

A troll is someone who essentially has acquired vague or ambiguous patents or intellectual property licences purely for the purposes of shaking someone down for rents that they might not have been able to get in a courtroom but are frightening enough to the university or innovator that they're willing to pay, simply because of the generalized nature of what they own.

To complete your question, we're looking at this issue in great detail, both in terms of its incidence in Canada and the degree to which our rules can help prevent some of those bad behaviours, but more importantly, on the strategy side, the degree to which our firms are IP-savvy in their capacity to prevent it themselves and be defensive at the outset.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Brian.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you.

What about patent unicorns?

I'm just kidding.

[Mark Schaan]

Mr. Masse, you stumped me.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

At any rate, we have investor angels and patent trolls.

With regard to the top 10 university filers at CIPO, I think we should attach this presentation to anything we do for the public. It's very helpful.

Could you explain why the universities are being ranked the way they are? I don't know if it's just a judgment call or if there's a particular reason. I'm interested in that. I'll leave it for you, and that's all.

[Konstantinos Georgaras]

The ranking here is just a straight count of the number of applications. This includes patent files as well as trademark filings. As you can see, many universities are very active on the trademark side. It's just a listing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Maybe in the future, though, we could see something with application to market, or something like that. I don't want us to be continually on that, but that would be an interesting part of it.

At any rate, thank you for the information and presentation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Frank.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

My questions are to do with metrics. I have a couple of questions, first of all on the AUTM metrics. My understanding is that those metrics are very weak because not everybody submits their data. In fact, I think something like half of them don't even bother submitting. When you put these numbers up here, then, am I right in understanding that they're very weak numbers?

[Alison McDermott]

I could come back to you with more information on the strength. I'm not aware of their being terribly weak on the basis of participation rates, but I could find out—

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I am. Maybe you could double-check to see how many responded to the last study that was done, how many universities are part of AUTM, and how many are bothering to submit data or not.

[Alison McDermott]

Okay.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

This is a tease-out of a broader study that they did for the United States primarily, and Canada fit into it. If you would, please look at that.

It brings me to a second question about metrics. You've been able to tease out some numbers on Canadian universities filing in Canada. If I understand correctly, you don't have that kind of information on filing in the United States, or can you go piece by piece to pull it out, although there's no repository for it?