Unlock the Power of Electronic Signature Legality for Assignment of Intellectual Property in Canada

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legality for Assignment of intellectual property in Canada

- Thank you everybody for joining us today. This webinar is sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy's Innovation Policy Lab. I'm Shiri Breznitz, the director of the masters in Global Affairs program and an associate professor at the Munk School and the Innovation Policy Lab. Today we're going to talk about intellectual property and entrepreneurship in Canada. These are big issues. And we have only one hour today. So let's get right to it. We are inviting questions from the audience. Please write to us in the Zoom Q and A field in the bottom of the screen and we will get to as many of those questions as we can. Our panelists today are, Seray Çiçek. She's the co-founder and CEO of LSK Technologies Inc. Ryan Hubbard, senior counselor, IP litigation at Shopify and Graeme Moffat, chief scientist and co-founder of System 2 Neurotechnology and a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. So, let's get started. I'm enjoying the privilege of shooting the first question in a topic that I've been super engaged with in the last few years. And really the first question is for each of you, how did IP impact your firm? Seray, you wanna start? - Sure. IP was something we had in mind even when we founded the company. It was something we started thinking first before the company. We started working on our IP during our master's degree at University of Toronto and that's when we contacted the IP office to learn more about how we can protect our intellectual property. That was kind of our first hit at that. And after that, we worked with the University of Toronto to get our IP streamlined and filed. And that was our kind of like first stick in the ground. And after that we have funded the company and we had been actively filing provisional patents and we actually filed our PCT two months ago. So, it's something we always keep in mind. - Sure. I think you mouthed my name, I didn't quite hear but... So, I came over to Shopify about a year and a half, almost two years ago now and we have... IP impacts us in a large variety of ways. We're a fairly substantial company at this point. So we have not only our patent portfolio, but we have a lot of code, we have a lot of people working for us for developing new things. We have our brand and we have to manage that brand all over the world. And then there's also our merchants, the people who use our services, their IP and there's also outside brand holders and their IP and rights holders. And being a platform, we are often confronted with issues in both directions about how people are using their IP, their brand, sometimes their patents. And so, we're at the convergence of a lot of different issues and a lot of different jurisdictions all over the world and it keeps me quite busy. - Thank you. Graeme. - Yeah. So as an early stage startup, IP development is something that sort of happens automatically for us. We face a lot of choices about what kind of IP to protect, what kind of IP to, and what strategies to use to protect it but we see it as absolutely critical to the future value of the company and to our freedom to operate in a technology space that's advancing increasingly rapidly. So in the neurotechnology sector, there weren't very many players outside of medical devices really until fairly recently. The medical device industry is a very, very IP heavy sector. And now what we're seeing is more and more entrance coming into the space outside of the medical device sector. So there's a real, I don't wanna say gold rush yet because it's still early stage, but there's certainly a rush to stake out parts of the technology, of the neurotechnology sector and claim them as your own. So it's a critical part of really the strategy of any startup in this space. - Thank you. So, maybe a follow up to that is, how do you choose a strategy? And Seray, you started as a graduate student and it's... I'm assuming with no background knowledge in intellectual property at all. So how do you even start something like that? - Yeah. So for us, the IP, we had basic information about and I think that's the kind of the general knowledge everybody does. We think we know it but we don't really know it until we want to apply it. So unfortunately for us, we were not thinking about an IP until we went and done our Latin-American field studies, sort of got amazing results so that this is something people want. And then we started, okay, it makes sense to make a company out of this. Then we started thinking about IP. And thank God we didn't do the mistakes that will make our product unpatentable. And when we started with the IP, everybody always thinks about kind of utility patents. So that was the first idea we had. However, when we talked to the IP office, there were other aspects that were brought up such as design patents. So I had to go learn, educate myself, what is a design patent? IP is not just a design patent or a utility patent, it also includes trademarks. Well, what is a trademark? What is it trade secret? Then I found myself kind of like digging the hole trying to find, trying to get as much as information. I was lucky that I was in the university so I had fond people that I can ask the questions to and I was able to get my answers. However, when I started on my own, I realized that there's a lot of things out there and it's hard to, by yourself, make the judgment whether something is patentable or not or whether something should be a software patent, hardware patent or method patent. So, that's where actually the discussion started. And I realized that it was something where you had to kind of come up with your company's strategy. What's your goal? What you wanna do? Where you wanna go at? And then after that come up with this IP strategy. Unfortunately we kind of did it a little bit to address (indistinct) but we weren't too late to do that. So we were kind of like at a sweet spot. But that was kind of my experience on that. - Thank you. Ryan, you are an IP litigator, so, you've probably seen a lot of different firms and worked in the field. What would be your advice when firms think about IP strategy? - So, coming at it from, I usually or at least in the past only got involved when people were already fighting about it. I would say, think about your IP strategy as forward-looking as you can. If you're talking about patents, you're gonna have those maybe for two decades, maybe a little bit more depending on jurisdiction and the specific rules. Your trademark is something that's going to last you forever essentially. Your copyrights could last longer than a human lifetime and trade secrets also can last forever. So think about not only where you are now, but where you wanna be, where you wanna get to and also the other firms that you're going to encounter along the way. You might be an entrepreneur and you're just starting up your first business in Toronto or wherever you may be. That's probably not, if you're successful, the only place you're going to be. So, where are your competitors gonna be? Where are they practicing? Where is this IP likely to be of value both to you? Do you need some sort of protection in China if everything in your industry is manufactured overseas somewhere? If you're in pharma, you're gonna have different considerations in your industry than if you're in software or fashion. And the scope of protection and the types of IP you're gonna want to rely on are gonna be different in different areas. But you wanna be thinking of that strategy about what's valuable to you and differentiates you in your industry and then set your strategy based on that assuming that you gonna want to use this someday. - Thank you Ryan. Graeme, what did you guys do when you started thinking about IP strategy? - Well, we were fortunate to have some experience from previous startups and technology companies. And got some exposure to IP, not litigators but patent lawyers and some patent agents. And we learned a fair bit. We're very fortunate in Toronto that there's a fairly vibrant community, and I think across Canada now, a lot of people who are very passionate about IP. So, we had some practice in drafting patents and we had some... We learned a lot from workshops. And there were a lot of free workshops actually in the sort of startup scene run by law firms that are prospecting for tech, for clients in the IP space who will educate you and then, in the hopes that you'll eventually use them as your IP lawyer. So, we had some experience with this. And then, of course, the challenge becomes for an early stage startup is, do you wanna file a PCT early on or try to build a family around provisional patent applications and use tactics like that? And in terms of just cost control and running lean, there are a number of tricks I think that we learned to use that help us avoid having to lay out enormous amounts of capital upfront to start the the patenting process. The other strategies that that have helped us a lot have been a bit of knowledge of other aspects of IP like trademarks and publication of white papers to put things out into the public domain that you don't necessarily want to protect but want to protect from patenting by potential competitors or third-parties. Which is a tactic that's heavily used by the big tech companies like Google and Apple. You'll see a lot of white papers out of Google on technology that they just want no one else to be able to patent. So, we've adopted a little bit of that as well to put things out into the public domain that we wanna make sure that nobody comes along. Because what seems obvious to us and maybe to the field can still end up being filed unfortunately. And then you get into a fight about non-obviousness. And that's where you don't wanna be if you'd need freedom to operate and your business depends on it. - Thank you. Ryan, there's two questions that I think I'm gonna send your way. It's just, if you don't mind telling a little bit of my audience what's the difference between a PCT. They're asking, what is a PCT? What is a trade secret? Maybe some, not in-depth, but just... - Sure. And I will preface this by saying I am a United States-trained lawyer and patent practitioner. And so, I might use US-based vocabulary that may not be applicable in Canada, but I'll do my best. So a trade secret is not something that you register, that would defeat the purpose of the secret actually. And so, the common example is the recipe for Coca-Cola. The recipe for Coca-Cola sits in a vault, I believe in Atlanta. And it's only known to a few people. And the protection on it is that it is a secret and you don't disclose it and you don't register it. The advantage of that is it can be protected that way indefinitely. You'd never have to disclose it to anybody so no one will ever figure out the secret recipe. The disadvantage is, if someone comes up with it on their own, you have no protection over it. In the United States in particular, there was a lot of reform around federal protection for trade secrets. And so it can be quite powerful to raise allegations of trade secret theft in combination with other claims. But the use cases for it, in order to have a trade secret, it needs to actually be a secret. So you need to have confidentiality, it needs to only be known to a few people. The fact that it's a secret itself needs to be valuable. So, it's another type of IP. It's not one that's often thought about. But it can be useful in certain circumstances. The other question I believe was, what is a PCT? And a PCT is a type of, for lack of a more in-depth answer, it's an international patent application process. So you can get coverage, as you step through the process you can get coverage in multiple different countries at the same time essentially. You go through a PCT phase and then you move into, if I remember correctly, different national phases. And so you get your patent protection, from one application you can branch out into a lot of different places. And so it's more efficient and there can be some priority advantages to doing it that way too. - So maybe this is a good place to move a little bit of a discussion, but what's the difference in protecting IP in Canada versus other places around the world? Graeme, do you wanna say something about that? - I wish I could say something about that. One of the interesting things about patents is that they really matter most in the biggest markets. And Canada unfortunately is, despite our best efforts, is not one of the biggest markets in the world. So, often what companies will do is file U.S. patents first or to get a predicate date, sort of establish the data of invention, we'll file in Canada and then quickly go through, have this recognition of through the PCT system of the predicate date for the invention. But the reality is that, given that we share a language and a lot of legal structures with the United States and the cost for small businesses has come down to file provisional patent applications, now there's an even lower rung for very small businesses that are just a few employees getting started where provisional patent applications cost something like 50 or a hundred dollars. So, the advantages to filing in the U.S. are pretty significant. There are still quite a number of people who file in Canada first, especially Canadian companies. And I think that has to do with the traditions of the legal system here and where people are trained. But in fact, the most important patents that you're going to hold as a company if you're doing business, if you're in the business of IP, you're in an international business and you really should be focusing on the largest markets in the long-term when you make your decision as to where to file. So, the cooperation treaties between different countries are extremely important. And this comes down to international relations as well and what Canada negotiates and the kinds of concessions we give and agreements we make as a country. And unfortunately, we didn't prioritize this in the USMCA renegotiation. And I think that there were opportunities there to really improve Canada's performance and streamline things that we didn't take. But we're still left with a fairly functional system where Canadian companies can file very easily in either Canada or the United States without too much difficulty. - Thank you. Seray, do you wanna add anything? I think especially, we have a question about small companies and how they deal with the costs. So maybe, you can also refer to that. - Yeah. Just going back to the original question, it's really important about the company's strategy. Not just today, but for the future. Well, Canada is a well-established company in terms of growth. We don't know what will happen in 10, 20 years. It's hard to see and predict that. But for example, if you are doing something specific to Canada where let's say, only (indistinct) exists in Canada, and that's what you're going for and you need to protect it, maybe it might make sense for you to file in Canada. But unfortunately, that is not the case for majority of the jurisdictions. For example, for a medical device company, is generally, you file in U.S. first. That's it, period. And after that, thanks to the pandemic and the changes in regulations in terms of the authorization of medical devices, Europe became more attractive right now because of the ease of entry to the dark market. So unfortunately, Canada is not the primary place majority of the people consider. And it's a greater system that you need to look into. Sometimes, for example, companies file IP in one country but not the neighboring, but file in the other ones. So it's kind of like a strategy game, which territories you wanna win. And if you win that territory, if the other territory will kind of fight back. So, you really need to... The IP is embedded in this strategy of the company. And when it comes to do small companies like ours for example, we started a year ago. Yes, we might not have the funds to go to court and we might not want that now. But when we go big, we will definitely go after these people who are infringing on our IP. And once you have IP, people are less reluctant to blatantly infringe on your technology 'cause they know in the future, if you can't right now, either somebody who buys you out or somebody who buys your IP can sue those people. So, we should not look at it from a narrow lens, you need to think about now, you need to think about future and you need to think about what that IP holds as a value. And that's pretty much of what I think. - Thank you. Ryan, do you have anything to add to that? - I think Seray got it exactly right. You always want to be forward-looking and thinking about where do you want your company to go and tend up and then that will be the value. It's an investment. And it's something of a gamble and you're gonna have to prioritize your resources ingly. But if the assumption is you are going to be successful or you're gonna want an exit strategy or you want something to come out of this, then you need to consider that along with all of your other business considerations. - Thank you. So, when do you decide to do this research? I think Graeme you said, you've had that opportunity to study some of this and you had some people you could ask for advice, but when do you decide to hire an attorney in IP, specialist or a patent lawyer versus doing some of this work by yourself? - Yeah. I wish I knew the answer to that. I think, as with so many other things in running a startup or getting a business off the ground, a big part of it is networking with the people who have the skills and knowledge that you know you will eventually need if not immediately. So, in the same way that you sort of keep your relationships to venture capital investors warm, you wanna do the same thing with lawyers who have the right expertise and patent agents who can tell you when it's time and when you've got an appropriate level of innovation or you've got your claims in order to maybe file. But it's actually not, it's not that hard to to draft up a provisional yourself and then have a lawyer look over it. I think you don't have to spend as much money as say, a company like Shopify would to have Ryan in house looking over these things in great detail as they're being drafted. There are workshops on this and there's a lot of information online and you can really find out a lot and go a long way yourself before you have to bring in the patent attorneys to the patent agents to finesse it for final application, for submission. - Thank you. Seray. - I can add to that 'cause I have done many of different sorts of IP related things. So, we originally started with University of Toronto where they kinda took the initial cost. But after that, for example, we won a bunch of competition and as an order in kind, there was IP services. So, we would come up with pretty much first draft, they would go over it and they would give us some feedback just like what Graeme said. And on top of that, incubators, they have kind of like people they have agreements with that duty services as a discount or for free. And on top of that, there are certain IP groups, they're really invested in your company. So, they are okay for working for a future value and they work for your equity. So you can do that in advance too. And I also agree that, yes, you should start drafting your first IP but since this is not your, hopefully, if you're not an IP company, this won't be your expertise. So you really need an outside consult to take a look and say, this is what you missed, this is what you need to do, have you considered X, Y? This is a strategy, how are you tackling this? So you really need to talk to someone about this to be sure that you're covering and you're free to operate and free to patent these objects that you're looking to patent. We don't hear you. - Yeah, sorry. Seray, can you tell us a little bit about the process as students that you go through? Where do you learn about IP? So, is there a course you can take or is it really more just like, this is U of T, but I'm assuming is there in the ecosystem of Canada or even just in Ontario, are there any resources that allow you to learn more about IP? - So, that's a great question. I'll start with my personal experience. (indistinct) came right now, which I'm happier. So when we first started, the first IP that I wanted to follow was when I was in Canada as an undergraduate student. So, this was like a rare field where nobody knew 'cause everybody focused on graduate schools. And it turned out that when you were in undergrad, there are different rules that apply to you than when you're in grad school. And in undergrad, I had the opportunity to attend in an entrepreneurship course 'cause I was just curious about what this entrepreneurship is about. And there one of the kind of course lessons was about IP. That's kind of was my first glimpse at the IP. And then through going through our amazing capstone project, we had to really think about how to apply that to our tools. And then we were part of an incubator hatchery that helped us do that. And then from there on as we kept going, we learned more and more about the IP. And then after one point, unfortunately at the graduate school at the time there wasn't a course, but now I know U of T is working on that and they're putting together an amazing course. I'm really happy to see that. But the other side of the thing is that, when it comes to IP, one needs to know what are the inventors of right? What are the institutions right? Where you might be developing your IP somewhere sometimes depending on which institution you're working with. You don't own your IP. From the beginning, you have no right to file that IP. But depending on where you're at, you might have all of it. For example in Canada there's 13 universities where they don't think anything, it's your IP. And there are different universities who will have different rules. So, you really have to check with your institutional (indistinct) this first invention came to exist. And on top of that, there are some public knowledge where you can Google things. That's maybe, all of us (indistinct) when we don't know something, let's ask to the Google and Google is giving you something and that's would be your starting point. And generally, when you're asked to people who are in the accelerators, they hook you up with the right people so you get correct answers to your questions. Where do confusion comes from as I'm applying that IP as I mentioned? For example when we first started, we had a hardware. But our IP was more so on the software plus the method. So, approaching there as a student I said, let's patent the hardware. 'Cause this is something I can touch, this is something I can feel and it is working. And then as you go through it you understand it is, what is actually patentable is the method and the software. And sometimes people's unfortunately approach to software is different. 'Cause the first intuition is that, since you code it, somebody else can do it. Which is not true. For example, there's a great example that is given in the new upcoming U of T IP course, the one-click purchase from Amazon. Anybody would think that being able to click a button and be able to purchase an order is something easy to do. But for the people who are in the field, it was not. It was patented. And guess what, somebody infringed on that. And Amazon did sue other people for a lot of money. So, its really applies to your company and you have to kinda educate yourself and ask the right question so that these people who are trained in the field can guide you appropriately. - Thank you. So, I think our audience has woken up and we have a long list of questions I'm gonna try to go through. There's some really interesting ones. So there's a question here saying, some companies have claimed that they are operating in a sort of post-patent paradigm where they have been explicit about how their innovation strategy is to compete on product rather than IP. So they argue that it's rather, than worrying about protecting an invention, it's more materials to spend your energy turning that invention into the best product you can as quickly as you can. Is this a trend you're observing? Is it more applicable in certain sectors? Does it favor certain types of companies over others? Ryan, I see you're unmuted so... - Yeah, I can probably speak to that a little bit. And there's probably a couple of reasons for this. In particular in the U.S. which is where a lot of patent litigation happens. It has not been a great time to have a lot of software patents for the past eight, nine years because of some case law that came out that made it easier to challenge those patents. And without getting into the legal weeds, that pendulum will shift back and forth over time. And so as I said, best to be looking at things with not, what is the value of this now, but what is my value and it gonna be in the future. I think it is a strategic consideration whether you're gonna put all of your energy into developing the product and competing or whether you're going to file patents. And I think this is a harder discussion and a harder consideration in some industries like software for example, than others where I think in biological sciences and pharma, the trend is more so to try and patent. So, it's a consideration you're going to have. And whether it's a trend, I think it has been a trend, I don't know if that's going to stay a trend. And so I would be careful about chasing things just cause they're trends and I would instead focus on what you think is right for your company and where you think the value is. And I would also say that just because that might be a philosophy that you and your company has, consider what might happen if another company out there has made the opposite consideration and does have same IP that at least on its face is registered and valid and how you are going to defend yourself if that person comes knocking. Just because some folks, I don't like to make the analogy and so I will borrow it from them that, and I think it plays well here, that you can play a skills game in hockey and you can be very fast and you can shoot and pass excellently and be perfectly pristine, but someday you are going to get checked. And so, checking is part of the game and similarly IP enforcement is part of competing in a global environment. And so, even if you make a decision that you are gonna compete on product rather than IP, be aware that other people will not have made that decision and be prepared to encounter those people and have a plan for when that happens. - Graeme, do you wanna add anything? - Yeah. I think I'll echo Ryan's point. This may be the case in software that we're in some aspects of software businesses that moving away from patents is a particular strategy. It's certainly not the case in hardware and even big tech. Often you'll see sort of product roadmap revelations through patent filings from the very biggest tech companies. So, in hardware tech I would argue that there's probably an accelerating rate of patenting and that it's certainly not slowing down. And if you're not paying attention to what people are patenting out there, eventually you're going to get body check to Ryan's analogy. If you have competition and you have no patents and you're actually driving, you're an innovation-driven company that's doing lots of process innovation or developing new and improving new technologies, you have to get that. You don't have to patent it. But it has to get out there as (indistinct) if you wanna be protected from eventual conflict with competitors. - I can add to that point. In addition to that, we are a fast growing startup. We do both. We have the benefit to also innovate and also think about the IP. It doesn't take too much resources. I can understand that some companies might be cash strapped. There are ways to look into that. The fact that you are hitting one roadblock doesn't mean you need to totally ignore them. In addition to what had been already said, you might not be filing your IP but guess what? Somebody will take your product, make a small improvement and file a patent on the improvement. And now, you cannot do that improvement and the other person can sell a better product that was based on your thing. So, you can't ignore IP. Even if you do it or not, you have to monitor the space, you have to understand what's going on in the field. - Thank you. And I think that relates to one of the questions we have about publishing research on your medical device or method. Does it make it more difficult to patent or does it actually protect your idea similar to what Graeme mentioned initially with this idea of the white paper? So how do you distinguish between what you can actually publish compared to what you really should protect and patent first? - I guess I... - (indistinct) take that. - Go ahead. - So, I'll take a quick shot crack at this and then hand it over to Seray. I think in terms of publishing, it depends on the relationship you have with the inventors. So often what you'll find is, with university-based inventions, the priority is to publish the research. And the only times that I've encountered that really coming into conflict with trade secrets or patents is in engineering papers. So in most biomedical papers, the principle criteria for publication are really whether the therapeutic intervention or the diagnostic works or it doesn't. And you don't actually have to reveal the molecular structure or the processes or the major innovations. But often for engineering publications you will. And those agreements can be quite difficult to negotiate with universities if you're a company that is trying to license the technology. Because to a certain extent you have competing priorities where the university has students that have to graduate and the professor needs publications in order to apply for their next grant. And if you need to keep something secret, then that has to be negotiated upfront in advance of starting the work really. And if you're trying to bring out an invention, a license and invention note, it can be very, very challenging depending on the sophistication of the university and how they handle it. - In many cases after you've got a publication you will have, and this is gonna depend on what country you're in and what legal regime you're under, but you do have potentially a short window to try and get a patent application on file after that. So there's a small grace period that I hesitate to tell you what it is because I don't know where the audience is sitting at any given moment in time or where they're gonna try and file. But generally, once you start publishing things that is going to limit your ability to seek a registration on it. Of course, if you publish something after someone has already filed an application somewhere else, you don't get any sort of protection off of that 'cause they did it first. So, you can get protection from publishing things, it may not be entirely comprehensive. - So Ryan, as long as I have you here, there's some questions about jurisdiction. So, does a Canadian patent protect you in the UK or does a U.S. patent protects you in Europe? - So generally speaking, patent rights are at least somewhat territorial in nature. You can get into some complicated questions about things that were made in one place and shipped somewhere else. But to take the U.S. system as an example 'cause it's a common jurisdiction, you have to, inside the United States, make use, sell, offer for sale or import into an invention that is subject to any United States patent in order to seek remedy in the United States. And I assume the Canadian laws are quite similar in terms of what they cover. So, you can file applications and then as we talked about under the PCT, you can get an application in one country and you can move through the process and register it in other countries subject to the requirements in those countries. But if you only have a registration in Canada, that's not going to do you a lot of good if someone is making and selling things exclusively in the United States. Now, if your competitor is making something in Canada and then shipping it into the United States, you might have protection. In either case, if you have a United States patent, you could gain protection because they're importing it into and selling it to the United States. And if you have a Canadian patent, you can get protection because they're manufacturing it in Canada. And so this is why you want to consider a patchwork of different jurisdictions to file in so that you can cover perhaps the manufacturing, perhaps the use. This also gets very complicated if you're working in networking type spaces because you wanna consider where your patent is actually going to be practiced. There's a very famous case involving Blackberry actually in the U.S. patent system involving where exactly the servers were located and when the system as a whole was put into use and where it was. So these are things that, we're getting kind of really far into the weeds now, but these are things you wanna consider based on the type of product you have, the type of service you have and then where it's gonna be used and where your competitors are gonna be. - Thank you Ryan. We have a few questions about different kinds of technologies and I... Some questions about blockchains and algorithms. As far as any of you know, is there a difference depending on the technology in protecting it in different places? - Maybe Ryan can talk a little bit about software patents in the United States versus elsewhere. - Yeah. So, software patents have had a very long and interesting history in the United States going back to basically as long as we've had software to argue over. And it has gone quite a bit back and forth as to which requirement is the troublesome one. So in the United States there's a requirement that's sort of a foundational core requirement of whether or not this type of subject matter is patentable or whether it's too abstract. And so mathematical formula can run a foul in the abstract of this. And there's a lot of uncertainty I would say right now as to where the boundaries of that doctrine really are right now. There's been talk of reform, but I don't know if we're gonna get anywhere in a hurry. There's also questions of enablement and written description. And if you are making a claim based on an algorithm or something like that, whether you've sufficiently disclosed that, it might not be sufficient to just say I have an algorithm for doing A, B and C and as long as you do A, B and C then that's fine. You might need to actually disclose your algorithm in the specification in more detail than that. Blockchain, there are a lot of blockchain-related patents out there already. A lot of them are in the hands of sophisticated financial institutions. So, certainly you can get patents related to this stuff through the patent office. It might be another question of how easy it would be to enforce, that might come down to what court you're going try to enforce it in. So, it is very much a moving target. And if you're in that area, that's probably one where you do wanna speak to a knowledgeable practitioner on that. - I want to quickly add this one little thing regarding IP disclosures and how things are patented. So I think there's this perception where, especially when it comes to utility patents that, when I file my IP, it's a black box that I protect. No, it's not a black box. When I apply especially a utility patent, I make an agreement saying that I'm willing to give you this information so that I will get exclusivity for XYZ in this period of time but after that the world can benefit from this and they can replicate that. So, we need to understand that. And when it comes to publications, and IP, it's a strategy, it's not a one item. It's a continuum that you need to think about. So because of that, for example, for our IP strategy, we're about to resubmit it a publication that's based on our technology. We protected our core IP part. Is still somebody who is willing to use it can use it for their own purposes but if they're going to copy our software, copy our methodology, they need to get a license from us or otherwise in the future we will have the right to sue them. So its really depends on what your strategy is, what you wanna do with it. At the end, this will be published and people will learn about it. - Okay. So there's a question that I'm gonna tweak a little bit. There's a question about federal programs supporting R and D. So, I know some of you have had some research funding involved in your inventions. How much support do you get from that in development of IP or understanding of (indistinct) Even guidelines on who owns the IP when you get funding from the federal government? - Yeah, I can take a crack at that one. Thankfully now, a lot of the federal and provincial funding in support of innovation has at least a requirement or at least a nominal requirement that there'd be an IP strategy associated with the development of this technology if appropriate. And the IP strategy doesn't have to be patenting. It can be open sourcing for example. But there has to be some semblance of a strategy. And that at least is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there's still not a lot of support. The Canadian intellectual property office is doing their best. But I think that this is relatively new to them and that they're not well-resourced to support Canadian inventions and innovations from the perspective of protecting IP and reaching out into companies as much as maybe they would like to and we would like them to. So, there's not a lot of financial support for it. But the provinces, as I'm sure Shiri can tell you about, have invested fairly heavily in the development of strategies, policies and now a curriculum for the post-secondary institutions to at least help younger entrepreneurs and inventors and maybe even some faculty members and some older ones to acquire at least the basic knowledge and know where to go looking for more information. So, we are headed in the right direction on this. And people are starting to talk about IP and talk about freedom to operate. And we still have to bring the level of sophistication of the discussion up a fair bit especially at the policy level, especially in Ottawa and Toronto and the provincial capitals. But it's encouraging to see that we're going in the right direction. - Thank you Graeme. Seray. - I agree with everything Graeme said. On top of that, we are moving forward towards the right direction but unfortunately, IP policy section in the grant application is a box that you fill and you forget about. People rarely practice it. And it is always similar to our case. We think about it retroactively and sometimes it's too late to do that. So, we really need IP resources to educate and IP departments in universities or different institutions to be part of this process. Unfortunately, they are always underfunded. There's only like three or four people who look after bigger institutions and that doesn't give it the attention it needs to. - Thank you. So, the topic for us is IP and entrepreneurship. So I wanna try and connect it a little bit with entrepreneurship because one of the barriers sometimes for entrepreneurs to grow is either the lack of knowledge in IP or experience. How do you deal with that? We have one larger company and two smaller ones, how do you balance between growing your firm but also at the same time protecting your IP? Graeme. - Yeah. Our strategy has been to focus on the products and on technical innovation especially this year given that there's only so much user testing and there are a lot of aspects of developing a hardware business that just were not possible in 2020. So there's been sort of a more emphasis on technical development which has led to the creation of probably more IP than we otherwise might have done. And I think that, discerning from that, what should be protected via say, a patent application and what should be by other strategies will be a key part of what we figure out as we test our products with users and in market. So, it's always going to be a delicate balance. But I think companies should focus on product first in the general sense and make sure that the products are getting out to users and that they're getting lots of feedback on them and improving them because no IP strategy makes up for a crappy product. So, focusing on product and focusing on user feedback and focusing on, and identifying where technical innovations happen or process innovations and highlighting those and then coming back to them and deciding whether or not to, you don't wanna interrupt the whole process necessarily and stop and file a patent unless it's really something critical that you feel like you need to protect immediately. But certainly coming back to and reviewing all of the innovations that have gone on and deciding which ones to protect and how to protect them is a key part of a strategy. - Thank you. Ryan. - So, understanding that entrepreneurial-ism can mean a lot of things other than tech too. I see a question about, in the entertainment and media space or just salesmanship. You can be an entrepreneur even if you just happen to identify products that you can sell and someone else makes them for you. Patenting things is relatively difficult and it takes some time to do very well. So, find the time when you've got a really good idea and it really brings value to do that, of course. But have a good brand name and work on that brand name and build recognition and that can pay dividends. And that is part of your product strategy. If you have really good photos that you're taking of your products, maybe run a Google search for those photos every once in a while and see if someone else is using them. And then that's a copyright issue. Think about something that's off neglected I think with entrepreneurs when they're just starting up and they're moving from that, like I am a person working out of my garage or basement or bedroom, to (indistinct) a business is actually getting the business documentation in place to show that you are a business and figuring out what entity if it's you or your partner actually owns the intellectual property and has control over what account. These things don't take nearly as much time and they can be very important and they can save you a lot of trouble in the long run. I have certainly seen, without naming names or mentioning things, instances where a company folded up because it didn't pay its registration on time. And that entity, that corporate entity was what owned all of their brand names. And now there's a great big fight trying to figure out like, okay, well, this company technically didn't exist for two years, so who owns the trademarks anymore? These are little footfalls and they're annoying and no one ever wants to deal with them when you are just going and making the best product. But some of going and making the best product is making sure that you have an identity that you are a business, that you are more than just a collection of individuals, that you're actually a company. And so, I think that ties into looking at contracts and agreements, basic business formalities, registering your IP or at least, you don't always have to register copyrights and trademarks to get some protection over them. So at least being cognizant of what it is that you're doing and whether that has value. And I think that's broadly applicable to, even if you're not writing software, if you're not coming up with biologics or you're not creating biomedical devices, thinking about what your products are and what identity they have is always important so that when someone asks you, well, what do you do? Your answer probably involves an aspect of IP whether you're thinking about it that way or not. - I can add to that quickly. So for example, we were also a product-focused company to the point where we decided to sell our device. And then our counsel was like, wait, we haven't patented it, you cannot do that. That will infringe our formula of patent. So, you really need to know what you can do and you cannot do. You can shoot yourself in foot if you sell something before you patent it. And we were one of the fortunate companies where we had a working product at the end of our masters. So we kind of be like, okay, let's file this now and then sell this product and get the user feedback and... So, it is a continuum that you really have to think about it continuously. It's not something that like, oh, should I focus on this or should I not? And depending on your company strategy, I do know there are certain startups where it just like, it's like throwing rocks. They file IP every other day trying to kind of occupy the space. That's not the strategy we do. You don't have to be in extreme, like file everything or don't file anything. What for example we do, and I can talk to our experiences that, (indistinct) when we realized, regenerate IP when we face the challenges. And then that's the part that I reflect, okay, there's a new IP happening here. And that as we iterate through it we see, for example, there's five opportunities. We test three out of five. See three's not working, two stuck, then we file an IP. Now, I'm happy and I think my money is worth it where I filed. So, it really depends on what is your approach to this IP is. There are certain cases where, if you're making new skyrockets and you cannot really test it in a such a past fashion like we do, 'cause we have a slow device I can do it in a matter of weeks, then you will have to employ a different IP strategy. Its really depends on what your corporate structure is. What are you doing? Where you wanna go at? - Thank you. I think we have time for one more question. So I'm just gonna turn to the three of you and say, if you have, what advice for new entrepreneurs in Canada? What is the one thing they should know before they start to have this brilliant idea? What should they do? Graeme. - Boy, that's a tough one. What's the first thing they should do. The biggest barrier to exploiting a brilliant idea is not necessarily protecting the IP, it's realizing the idea itself. So (indistinct) finding some engineers to collaborate with, people who can build things and making this thing work and seeing if it actually works first and making a compelling minimum viable product I think. That tells you really whether the IP is going to be worth anything. If you have a really good, really great idea, the most important side of it is realizing that idea whether or not it's patented. And I think that in terms of IP you should always be, as Ryan said, it should always be in the back of your mind. You should be talking to people about it, you should go and get access to the resources in the regional innovation centers or at the universities nearby. There are lots of people who know about it. There are lots of resources online to learn about how to patent IP strategies and how to file provisional patent applications. But that initial minimum viable product and actually building the thing will often lead to as much innovation as the initial idea and as much protectable IP as the initial idea. So, it's really about building and testing products first and foremost. - Thank you. Ryan. - I'd like to echo what Graeme said and say, technically you can't even patent ideas. Ideas are by their nature abstract. And so, great ideas are great. There is no lack of great ideas that didn't go anywhere. So I would say, do something. Really sit down and (indistinct) do something and your IP will be guided by what you're doing. And don't be surprised when the thing you're doing turns out not to be the right thing to be doing and you need to go do something else. And I think that's a pattern that will repeat over and over and over and over and over and over again for the rest of your career. And it's a process of constantly reevaluating and constantly trying to adapt. And the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you are nimble enough and can do that. And so I think there's opportunities to come up with yet another great idea and then see if that works. And if it works great, you're off to the races. And you can find another thing that works or another thing that doesn't work. So just keep experimenting and trying things. And when you've got something valuable, take that into consideration. - Thank you Ryan. Seray. - I would definitely say, know your rights. What you can do, what you can't do. You can come up with a minimum viable product that solves a problem, but if somebody has already done it and patented it, you have no market. And in addition to a minimum viable product, it needs to be a minimum, viable, validating and valuable product. So it needs to give your customers an advise that they are willing to use it. It validates your business model and it needs to work to some extent. And I think all of this starts with knowing what your rights are, what you do and what you can not do. - Thank you very much. Looking at the time, this was an amazing session. I really appreciate the three of you for coming in and answering our questions. So thank you Seray, Ryan, Graeme, from all of us at the Munk School and the Innovation Policy Lab. We appreciate you and everybody's with their amazing questions and comments. And I'm gonna go and read all of them all over again. It's wonderful. Thank you very much. - Thank you. It's a pleasure being here. - This was really fun. Thanks. And thanks for the great questions too.