Once again, I think that the important thing is to change behaviour. As studies conducted by the intellectual property office of Canada and statistics Canada have shown, Canadian companies underutilize intellectual property assets in general, and patents in particular. Being able to provide a grant to an established company that would give it an incentive to show concern for intellectual property is beginning to change behaviour. We're not talking about new companies here, or emerging companies from the universities, but rather established companies.
What we've have found is that the first patent is a remarkable step forward. It's very good. However, it takes more than one patent to build an intellectual property portfolio,. It's often the second, third or fourth patent that will add an enormous amount of value to the initial intellectual property.
With that in mind, establishing a program like this would change people's behaviour, and once behaviour begins to change, it becomes easier to further encourage the use of intellectual property tools.