Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support the budget implementation act, and specifically, the legislation establishing the college of patent agents and trademark agents. This is an important element of the government's IP strategy, a strategy that, taken as a whole, will ensure that Canada's intellectual property regime is modern and robust and supports Canadian innovation in the 21st century.
Patent and trademark agents are a key component of the innovation ecosystem, as they help inventors secure exclusive IP rights. Given the rising importance of IP in the innovation economy and the central role of patent and trademark agents, it is time to have a professional oversight body responsible for maintaining the high standards expected of trusted advisers. As a bonus, this would address long-standing gaps in the current framework for regulatory oversight, which lacks clarity and transparency and is without a binding code of professional conduct.
Given the importance of the profession, good safeguards here will ensure that agents do the jobs they do well and that they have the trust of their clients, and Canadians more broadly. While there is no evidence suggesting a large problem with agent conduct, the need for modernization is imperative, now that communications with IP agents are protected by statutory privilege in the same way as solicitor-client advice. This is an extraordinary right that requires ethical guidelines to prevent its abuse.
The college of patent agents and trademark agents act would establish an independent regulator, specifically a college, for the professional oversight of IP agents, in the public interest. The college would administer a licensing system to ensure that only qualified professionals were authorized to provide agent services.
As an independent regulator, it would also be responsible for enforcing a code of professional conduct to ensure that IP agents continued to deliver high-quality advice. The college would also be responsible for implementing requirements for continuing professional development to ensure that agents stayed informed about the ever-evolving IP landscape. Ultimately, these measures would raise the bar for IP professional services in Canada.
The college would have an investigations committee to receive complaints and would conduct investigations into whether a licensee committed professional misconduct or was incompetent. A separate discipline committee would have the authority to impose disciplinary measures if it decided that a licensee had committed professional misconduct or was found to be incompetent.
Finally, this act would create new offences of claiming to be a patent agent or trademark agent and of the unauthorized representation of another person before the patent office or the office of the registrar of trademarks. These offences are intended to serve an important consumer protection function to ensure that innovators receive representation from a qualified, licensed agent.
I would like to speak about the important features that have been built into the legislation to ensure that regulation is undertaken with the public interest as the priority. Careful consideration was given to ensuring that the legislation would support the public interest in a competitive marketplace of well-qualified and professional IP agents.