Thank you, Chairman.
I will take a few moments to outline our plan to monitor and evaluate the government's Policy on Title to Intellectual Property Arising Under Crown Procurement Contracts.
That is the policy on title to intellectual property arising under crown procurement contracts—which is quite a mouthful, so I'm just going to call it the policy.
The policy was put in place in 2000 to increase the potential for commercial exploitation of IP developed by contractors involved in crown procurement contracts. It's our believe that the private sector is best placed to turn IP into commercial opportunities. As a result, the government retains the right to use the intellectual property but ownership resides with the contractors.
There a few exceptions. The government may retain ownership of the IP for reasons of national security; when statutes, regulations, and obligations preclude contractor ownership; when the contractor isn't interested in owning the IP; when the knowledge will be publicly disseminated; when the knowledge will be combined with other knowledge and then transferred to the private sector; and when the material is subject to copyright.
Departments can retain intellectual property ownership in other exceptional circumstances with the explicit approval of the Treasury Board.
This policy applies to all federal departments and agencies and to all contracts, be they for goods or services. Executive heads are responsible for ensuring that their organizations are in compliance with this policy. The Treasury Board Secretariat and Industry Canada are responsible for monitoring the application of the policy and for its evaluation.
In 2007, the Treasury Board approved a plan to evaluate the policy. It proposed, as a first step, measures to increase awareness and to collect more accurate data. Shortly thereafter, measures were put in place to ensure that departmental officials were aware of the policy and understood reporting requirements. Actions were taken to ensure more complete and accurate data collection in order to support an evaluation of the policy by 2011.
As a result of the work launched in 2007, data are now available for the 2008 calendar year from 80 departments and agencies. The government invoked its right to own intellectual property in 1,758 cases—that is, in contracts valued at over $25,000. The most common reason for retaining ownership was to respect a statutory, regulatory, or prior obligation requirement; to ensure the government's ability to disseminate the results publicly; and because of copyright requirements.
So in the first phase of this work, a more robust data collection system was developed. In the second phase, departments will take steps to ensure that they are in complying with the spirit and intent of the policy. For example, Industry Canada will assess each contract that invoked an exception to ensure that it was an appropriate application of the policy. In the third phase, Industry Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat will engage an expert to evaluate the policy by the end of 2010, one year ahead of schedule, and we'll report the results to the Treasury Board.
Industry Canada and the Treasury Board Secretariat have tabled a management action plan, which provides a more detailed description of the activities we intend to undertake to carry out our responsibility to monitor and evaluate the policy.
We will be pleased to report to the Auditor General on progress annually and to answer any questions you may have on our proposed approach today.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.