Absolutely. Thank you, Ms. Bradford.
The government has announced money for this ElevateIP program. ElevateIP is supposed to help business accelerators and incubators get the tools to Canadian start-ups to understand, manage and leverage their IP. That's the purported reason for the creation of the ElevateIP program. As such, universities are perhaps not as closely involved as potentially business accelerators and incubators might be. The money is being provided to help start-ups understand, manage and leverage their IP.
From a start-up perspective, one of the biggest challenges is.... We all know IP is important. The question is how we pay for it, because IP is expensive. This program is helping us understand and manage the IP from a start-up perspective, but I don't know if it's going to enable us to pay for IP.
When you think about a start-up, a typical start-up might raise anywhere from $300,000 to a million dollars in its first few years of operation. If I talk about how much it costs to file a U.S. patent, from filing to issuance, you're looking at anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000. That can add up very quickly and become a very significant portion of the start-up's costs. I think it's a good program, but I don't know if the goals that it's purporting to meet will actually be met.