Industry committee  Some of it is. I think some of it's culture. Your dad's thinking was not unusual. I think that if your mindset is local, getting a patent might not be as important to you, but I think people are thinking more globally now, so you have to protect yourself not only here but abroad,

Industry committee  I don't really have a sense of that to give you a good answer. I'd have to go and talk to some friends back at work as to what their thoughts are on it. I don't disagree with what you have to say, but I don't know whether there's a flux in or out.

Industry committee  I'm at a loss to know. I think it's probably two years until your first examination report. Some of the guys in the gallery behind me would have better answers than I would right now, but let's say that three years to get a patent through the system is about right, from applicati

Industry committee  We have some very high-tech manufacturing capabilities. I know I've been working with those individuals just recently, and what they do is quite fascinating. I think there's more to be done going forward, possibly with 3-D manufacturing, for example. Some of these concepts are ju

Industry committee  I believe so. We try not to develop everything ourselves. For example, we'll work with robotics companies and vision measurement system companies on different projects to improve our manufacturing capabilities. It would be far too costly to do everything ourselves and to pull in

Industry committee  Engineers like to do engineering work, and they don't recognize or necessarily understand until they've dealt with us a bit that part of the package of innovation is also to protect that innovation. It's taken some time, but we've worked closely with engineering to develop differ

Industry committee  This is a concern that I have. We hire lots of engineers, and I work with a lot of engineers, and they come to work and have no idea about intellectual property rights. Waiting until you get to a law school curriculum or waiting until you get trained in the field as an agent is

Industry committee  Myself, I passed the exams in 1992 and other than self-educating along the way, I have had no impetus to continue to learn what is going on with the law or what have you. It is such an important right that you get in these patents, and you need to have someone who understands wh

Industry committee  I don't know the answer.

Industry committee  CIPO is the agency that is part of the government that takes care of this. We're the agents who work outside of that agency to help the clients deal with CIPO.

Industry committee  I think it is. If you're going to develop—

Industry committee  You can do it yourself, but as I was saying to somebody today, I could probably perform appendix surgery, but I wouldn't advise anybody to be my patient—but you can do it yourself.

Industry committee  Perhaps, but if you're going to invest in this brand and develop it over time and it's going to become what distinguishes you from all of your competitors, it may be that the trademark you choose in view of other trademarks that are out there may not be the best one. You may choo

Industry committee  They aren't necessarily.

Industry committee  Right. Usually the agent that you work with here in Canada works with a network of agents in other places where you ultimately plan to do your business. If we're talking about trademarks and the like, they help do searches of their registers as well as the registers here or other