Industry Committee on June 6th, 2017

[Kenneth Porter]

Right, but that information is publicly available so it could be done.

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

To a certain degree it's public. If there is a patent pending, if they're not fully published—

[Kenneth Porter]

There is an 18-month period of silence, but after 18 months it's all available.

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

Okay.

Would we not have to search every patent office in the world if we were going to do it that way?

[Kenneth Porter]

If you want to get every single one.

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

That's right.

[Kenneth Porter]

You could get the bulk of them, I think, with the U.S. and Canada.

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

I'll turn to Mr. Susalka.

If we were to use something like the Bayh-Dole Act, I understand it necessitates that the people who are being funded disclose that information, that as part of the deal that we're going to fund you, you're going to tell us what you're doing, what you're patenting, and not necessarily just what you're patenting, but what your know-how and your expertise is.

Could you elaborate on that? I think you touched on the point when you mentioned your statistics and you said that in commercialization you don't actually know because in Canada there are a number of places that are, unfortunately, not disclosed and don't need to be disclosed. I believe in your statement you said that your numbers are not actually firm because of that lack of forced disclosure. Could you elaborate on that, please?

[Stephen Susalka]

Sure. There are two points I want to make on the Bayh-Dole Act.

Number one, as it relates to your question, if an invention is funded by the federal government in whole or in part, it is required to report that invention to the federal government. Just to be clear, that would not include inventions that were funded by non-federal sources at all, and again, it's in whole or in part, so even if it were partially funded by the federal government, it would be reported.

In the U.S. this captures the large majority, as in the United States, federal government funding accounts for 60% to 67% of research expenditures, I believe. In Canada, it's closer to 40%, but still you'll capture a great amount of that.

The other point I want to make—and maybe this is just a callback to an earlier conversation on the Bayh-Dole Act—is that one of the other requirements we have is a requirement to substantially manufacture an invention, again, funded in whole or in part by the federal government, in the United States. There is potentially an option like that for Canadian federal or provincial funding.

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

If we were to put it together, if we wanted to start a sovereign patent fund or a pool or whatever, we need the information. We don't actually have the information. We could reverse engineer it. It would be 18 months late or more. Or we could go with something like the Bayh-Dole Act, which says that if we're giving you money you're going to at least tell us what you're doing with it.

I want to go back to you, Mr. Porter, on another point. You said that once we have this information—and you said you tried it with WCIO—it's not enough just to have it. There was not a pull from the industry. You actually had to hire people to go out and push it, to be the grease.

Could you expand on that? Once you collected information within your local areas and you established expertise, how did you make that link between the industry and the researchers?

[Kenneth Porter]

We actually call it a market pull. We would call it a market push for an invention that's created at the university and we go out to push it to a company we think can exploit it, but we actually do it the opposite way with the WCIO. We catalogue the institution's capabilities and then we go to industry and ask what the problem is, and we use that problem as a draw on the resources that are available across the west at academic institutions.

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

You've done a mini version of gathering the information—not just the IP, but the know-how—and then you say, “I know this.” It's not enough to ask, “How do I get that out to the company?” Obviously, you don't publish it, but if we had a patent pool, it might be published and everybody would know. There might be more of a pull from the industry—

[Kenneth Porter]

Yes.

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

—but in this case you know it; they don't even know it—

[Kenneth Porter]

Right.

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

—so you have to go out to push it to them.

[Kenneth Porter]

It's the other way. We draw on it.

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

You draw on it. You're pushing it to the industry. You're trying to push that knowledge to the industry that you have this expertise, so asking what they are looking for, and saying, “We can help you.”

[Kenneth Porter]

What are they looking for, and that type of—

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

You're not sitting on your hands hoping that the industry knocks on your door.

[Kenneth Porter]

Which we would call a push, yes.

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

You're actually going out there to try and make that link.

[Kenneth Porter]

Right.

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

You're doing that at a microcosm level. You haven't done it across the country.

[Kenneth Porter]

Right, across the four provinces with just eight people.