Evidence of meeting #66 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 recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
That's a very fine answer. I already made a mistake because I pronounced it the “Buy”-Dole Act. I always say if I were perfect, I wouldn't be working here.
We'll turn it over to Mr. Gold and then we'll go around, and if Mr. Ring, at the end of the day, you have something to add, we would be happy to have you do that.
James McGill Professor, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Medecine, McGill University, As an Individual
I think if we were perfect we wouldn't be working anywhere.
Actually, there's a lot of misinformation about the Bayh-Dole Act. It only applies to a percentage of U.S. rules. It's only federally funded research that is subject to it. As to anything that comes from the state or from industry.... In fact, universities in the United States vary considerably. It's a myth that there's a uniform system in the United States. That is actually not true because most projects are funded from multiple sources.
This has been studied to death in Canada and the unanimous conclusion is that there's no point in coming up with uniform rules. It's actually not the barrier. Just as different firms have different approaches to how they think about their IP, we manage that. What you want is clarity and strategic knowledge so that when you approach a university, you know what they want to do.
As I argued before, I would get universities, to the extent possible—and you don't want to do it 100%—out of the business of patenting, leaving it to the private sector firms to do it. We want to open up the universities, but I don't think we want a Bayh-Dole Act. Frankly, I'm not sure it would pass constitutional muster. This is about the make-up of universities and would likely have to be done through the provinces, in my view, but I'm not an expert. You could attach it to federal grants. On federal grants you can specify who the owner is, but then when you have mixed funds, it's going to lead to more chaos, not less, in my view.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Beney, maybe we'll start with you across the panel here.
President, Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
The U.S. put the Bayh-Dole Act into place in 1980, I think. As mentioned, I believe that it was really to direct the federal funding aspect so it wasn't owned by the government. A lot of universities do have some ownership of that particular aspect of the technology developed from that.
I think we already have that in some respects. There may be other aspects of the act that I'm not sufficiently familiar with to know if they would be favourable or not. I heard that there were aspects about reporting that might be favourable. Maybe that might be helpful from the perspective of knowing what kind of patents are coming out, just for the supercluster idea, for example.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks
I can't really comment because I'm not familiar with it, but I want to caution that the supercluster is not going to solve all of Canada's problem. I think everyone is kind of aware of that. It's one of the tools in the tool belt, but I think it requires a multi-pronged approach.
Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I would agree with the idea that putting a uniform law across the country that every university has to conform with.... That is not the barrier; the barrier is the ability to negotiate contracts to leverage business interests to participate in a research project. I think you have to go back again distinguish between a research project or an innovation project that is designed for commercialization. You still have to distinguish research as opposed to something that is designed specifically for a commercializable product.
If you're looking to engage business, there has to be a way for business to be able to participate and have some ownership of the product when it comes out. That's up to those universities. If they want to participate in those kinds of projects, then they'll need to amend their policies.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Really quickly to Mr. Smith, you mentioned the uptake of the SR and ED tax credit decreasing. I know that the automotive industry was able to tap into that successfully, but it had quite a comprehensive layer of support to do so. Would a SR and ED tax credit at least be something positive if it were made more available to small and medium-sized applications versus the complications that have changed it since 2012? What do should we do to recover that, or should we not bother to recover the use of it?
Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
SR and ED is still available to small and medium-sized enterprises, and many are taking advantage of it. The challenge, I think, is how the criteria are applied to those small and medium-sized enterprises and their ability to navigate those criteria and conform to what the Canada Revenue Agency is asking for, which can be different from one agent to another. I think there needs to be more consistency in the system.
My earlier comments were that if you want to make SR and ED a more accessible program and bring back some of the research and development spending, you would have to move back to what the original arrangements were, which a larger business could take advantage of. The automotive companies in Windsor, for example, would be able to take advantage of it if we were to revert back to the old rules.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you.
I want to thank our guests for spending some quality time with us today. There's lots of information we need to ponder.
Finally, for the rest of us, as you know, I'm tabling the Washington trip in the House on Friday. Then, so far next Tuesday we do have five more witnesses on the docket.
On that note, you all have a great day.
The meeting is adjourned.