Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here and welcome to the committee.
Mr. Williams and Mr. Noseworthy, I want to start with patent term restoration. I'm reading from the detailed summary provided by the government. It says:
Period of protection will be calculated using reference points including the filing of the application for the patent and the first authorization to place the product on the Canadian market. Period of protection offered by Canada will never exceed a fixed cap of two years.
I want to make sure I understand this. You're an innovator, you develop a new molecule, and you apply for a patent. I've been told that's usually done as quickly as possible so that you can protect your intellectual property against other people who may be seeking to file a patent.
At some later point you then apply for regulatory approval to market the product. Once that is approved, you're able to go to market. It's that period of time between those two applications, or the application and the product approval, with a cap of two years that CETA has given. Is that correct? Do I understand that properly?