Industry committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here on behalf of Dalhousie University. As you mentioned, my name is Erica Fraser, and I have the longest title in the world, manager of technology commercialization in e

Industry committee  Well, I think the first thing to note is that it's not so much that Canada is a second choice; it's that under the current patent system you file in one place, and then you have 12 months to file either internationally or pick your other countries. The U.S. just offers that added

Industry committee  Sure, but just to clarify, by IP policies, do you mean at the government level or internal to the university?

Industry committee  Sure. I think within certain applied research grants these days there is provision for IP funds for filing. For example, the NSERC I2I is a great example of having funding available for patenting. I think that's great. I think where there is a little bit of a disconnect is pe

Industry committee  I would say that's correct. I would say that there is another aspect to it too. If we consider IP developed at the university, and our goal is to commercialize that intellectual property, enforcement is the way we will have power to license it to a commercial partner, as opposed

Industry committee  I would think so, yes.

Industry committee  As far as standardization, there is obviously a wide range of policies across Canada. At Dalhousie University, the researchers own their own intellectual property. That can be altered by contract, if they choose to contract with a company that wishes to deal directly with the uni

Industry committee  Yes. It's under the Bayh-Dole Act. There is some legal uncertainty as to what that means right now after a case at the Supreme Court last year. Currently the understanding is that it means the researchers have to disclose their intellectual property to the university and the univ

Industry committee  I don't know enough to comment on that. I do know that most universities have some sort of revenue sharing with their researchers in the U.S.

Industry committee  I don't know about France for sure, but I understand that the U.K. system is much like ours, where you have sort of a smorgasbord of different policies.

Industry committee  Absolutely.

Industry committee  No, understood.

Industry committee  Many patent agents are also lawyers, but they don't need to be. Patent agents are often people with a technical background, often but not always with advanced degrees in particular sciences or engineering. Depending on the field, the higher the education necessary; in pharmaceuti

Industry committee  No, absolutely not. They tend to conglomerate in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, because—

Industry committee  Exactly.