Science and Research committee  It's going to happen until we scale Canadian tech businesses that can provide a centre of gravity for our own intellectual property. We need to have Canadian businesses large enough to be buying our own start-ups and buying intellectual property that's been developed within our u

Science and Research committee  I have one further thought based on that. BlackBerry, which you were talking about, built IP capacity in this country. If you look at the IP experts who know how to utilize IP, you see a lot of them came from that route. For those large companies that do build success, they build

Science and Research committee  The one example when it comes to intellectual property that I really like is Germany and their Fraunhofer institutes. They centralize the management and commercialization of intellectual property in a single group. Rather than having a diverse set of actors, all with different mo

Science and Research committee  It's giving freedom to people in the marketplace who have the expertise and risk tolerance to go out and build solutions—

Science and Research committee  I'm with a not-for-profit, so—

Science and Research committee  The valley of death is probably outside of my expertise as an IP practitioner in the start-up ecosystem.

Science and Research committee  That's a great question. I agree. Without measurement, we don't have data to act on. I would build on that, though. When I get engaged with other government funding programs in looking at how they evaluate intellectual property as part of that—never mind commercial success if t

Science and Research committee  Monitoring the outcomes and understanding what the inputs are in the proper context....

Science and Research committee  We are the only not-for-profit that is fully funded to pursue IP needs. Yes, there is funding available for other programs that flows to service providers, etc.

Science and Research committee  Companies are hungry to learn about this. We go out and talk to small and growing companies. They know they don't know. They want answers. They want help. We've gone from zero companies in our membership less than two years ago to over 190 companies engaged, and more are being ad

Science and Research committee  There are very limited government programs in the United States, because they're not needed. The expertise on building IP positions, on utilizing IP positions to help grow companies and on driving new revenue into companies using intellectual property is all there. It's in the ec

Science and Research committee  I think the key piece for the federal government is building national infrastructure that can be deployed to local needs. The local organizations may not have the resources or capacity to build the infrastructure needed. The government, though, has the contacts with the businesse

Science and Research committee  There are two steps that can be taken to address that collaboration aspect. The first is creating a simple map of the programs that are available at all levels of government, so that entrepreneurs can quickly understand where they can get the help they need. The second is underst

Science and Research committee  For me, the largest roadblock is the lack of understanding about IP strategy and approaches to capture and commercialize IP. Canadian companies do not have access to role models or peers who understand these issues. Our economy has been dominated by resource companies and financi

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Mike McLean. I'm the CEO of the Innovation Asset Collective, which is a not-for-profit funded by the federal government to improve the ability of Canadian companies to implement IP