Finance committee  Yes. It creates a new governance structure that essentially allows for a more robust governance regime. As I say, right now there are limited powers. It's either on the list or off the list. This will expand the scope, allow for a series of other offences, and allow for an inve

Finance committee  It was to the commissioner.

Finance committee  Contract law would still apply, so you'd be able to—

Finance committee  Can you? Yes. Contract law would apply to the scenario of an individual claimant who has sought the services of an IP agent and is unhappy with that. Right now, they could potentially pursue that through the courts.

Finance committee  It's a mixed model, so I'll let Patrick explain.

Finance committee  The drive for the college was less driven by complaints. We believe that the vast majority of patent and trademark agents are acting in good stead. The drive for the college was the incompleteness of the governance structure. In part, the inability to know how one might complai

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Great. I will switch to part 4, division 7, subdivision D. This is the one that pertains to your question, Mr. Vice-Chair. Subdivision D of division 7 of part 4 enacts, through clauses 247 to 264, the college of patent agents and trademark agents act. The act establishes the c

Finance committee  The way it works right now is that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office works with the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada to set out the exams to become a patent or trademark agent. At the completion of that examination process, which is jointly run by the profession

Finance committee  There's a four-part exam, yes. It's actually an extremely strenuous process to become a patent and trademark agent. It's one of the more comprehensive and difficult sets of examinations in the professional community. It sets very high standards for how to pursue intellectual prop

Finance committee  It varies enormously. The pass rate on the first try for the hardest of the four exams is extremely low. The process is usually done in conjunction with acting as a professional. You can't act before the office, but the archetypal journey to becoming a patent trademark agent is t

Finance committee  ISPs have developed a structure to be able to pass along those notices. They would be contravening the law set out by indicating that the notices can't contain that information. There are no direct penalties. The goal is, as per the structure of the entire system, to inform the

Finance committee  First of all, following the notice and notice regime, ISPs and rights holders and the major rights holders got together to talk about a standard format for notices, including plain language. The vast majority of rights holders are working with the ISPs to ensure that notices are

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  The goal of the strategy was very much to ensure that we had sufficient protections and that we were preserving the balance necessary in the intellectual property realm. These are provisions that bring our regime, which has been modernized consistently over the last decade, even