The most realistic patent pool is not one owned by the government. That has been done in South Korea and France. It should be industry-led, with government funding and co-funding.
I work with Power Corporation here. They're interested in doing some things in this area, whereby firms would get together, define a space, perhaps in association with a cluster, and buy patents. They would then license those patents out to any Canadian firm—it would have to be completely open—and you could do so in one of two ways. One is just to provide freedom to operate, so that eventually, if some U.S. firm were to sue them, they'd be able to countersue and tell them not to go ahead, rather than use it as an armament—that is, we transfer it to a Canadian firm and allow them to attack other firms.
The first line of defence is simply to provide Canadian firms with some defence, especially in the IT industry, where it's most important, so they can negotiate agreements.
You can also achieve a similar route through funding. When you fund large projects, you can attach a rule to the funding agencies that says they can patent, but if they patent, whenever they license the patent there must be a agreement by the licensee or the transferee that they not sue Canadian entities. You would have to define them.
What you're basically trying to say is that knowledge that the government is funding or that industry as a group is funding cannot be asserted against Canadians. That gives us room to breathe. It doesn't bring new products, but at least it gives us the opportunity to enter into the U.S. market.
The alternative of having the Canadian or provincial governments set up a pool.... I just don't think that governments are willing to put that much money into it by themselves. The safer way is to have it industry-led.