Industry committee  Less expensive in the long run? For sure they're going to save the legal fees, but if they don't get what they're expecting because they don't truly understand the law, they may be shooting themselves in the foot as well. I'm not sure if I understand your question properly.

Industry committee  We have an outreach team who does that. In fact we've been speaking to most of the universities and the technically oriented colleges in Canada. We also have, with various IP associations, a speakers bureau type of approach. We have canned presentations, such as IP 101, and how

Industry committee  Different, not necessarily more, but different. We look at things differently than they do, and the amount of time it takes to process an application is also probably a whole lot more dependent on the administration, on how many people you have going through the applications. I

Industry committee  You have to understand that the business folks who make the application also make the decision to wait. Clearly, in their business and their industry, it's beneficial to wait. It's not necessarily an impediment. There is a reason for that to happen. It could be that you may have

Industry committee  Since 2004.

Industry committee  First of all, CIPO is not a department. We're an agency of the Department of Industry. We are 100% user-fee based. I don't have a government appropriation.

Industry committee  They are set, yes. We go through Parliament to raise our fees. We are also a revolving fund, meaning that the fees are set so that we can, for a period of a few years, accumulate net income where at some point the costs will exceed the revenue. It's planned that way. We will burn

Industry committee  I'll take a crack at that one. We have basically two types of applicants. We have those who are represented by a professional IP agent—who is typically a lawyer with an engineering background, if it's in the patent world—and we have unrepresented applicants. If you do hire a l

Industry committee  Actually, what I said was that we have different tests that are based in law that we have to conduct. The law doesn't state that we take 49 months and they take 38.

Industry committee  I'll be really quick, then. With respect to percentages of university holdings and whatnot, in terms of applications for this past year, three or four universities are among the top 20 applicants, and they probably totalled in number close to 70 applications out of the 36,000.

Industry committee  You touched on a number of points. I will try to answer, and then we'll see—

Industry committee  When you apply, you have 18 months during which we do not disclose your invention. I think you said we would disclose.

Industry committee  When you file with us, for 18 months, although you disclose to us, we will not make it public. You're protected from that perspective, but at the 18-month point, we do make it public.

Industry committee  Right. The clock starts when they apply.

Industry committee  About 30% of applications will request examination and application. Then you have five years. You know, if you look at a histogram over the five years, about 30% apply right off the bat, then another 25% apply at the five-year point. Those are the people who want to take their ti