Patenting in Pandemic Mitigation Technologies

, Data Scientist at CIPO’s Corporate Strategies and Services Branch, shared CIPO’s response to the pandemic, including its findings of their study on COVID’s impact on IP trends in Canada. The Canadian government’s funded the (‘NRC’) to accelerate research and development in Rapid Detection and Diagnosis, Therapeutics and Vaccine Development, and Digital Health. CIPO helped the NRC to understand the patent landscape on related technologies.

The study found 11,000 global patents in these areas between 1999 to 2018, including 178 patents from Canadian institutions. In the global dataset, 56% of patents fell under Therapeutics and Vaccine Development, 33% under Rapid Detection and Diagnosis, and 11% under Digital Health. Patent activity consistently increased just after the onset of major outbreaks. For example, filings in Canada spiked after SARS and MERS.

50% of patent applications in pandemic related technologies originated in the US and China. While Canada’s 8% growth between 2009 and 2018 aligns with the global average, filings from China grew the fastest at 26%. Statistical analysis indicates a move towards concentration in patent filings from a few countries. Further, Canada was found to have one the of highest specializations in pandemic mitigation technologies compared to other countries of interest. Within Canada, British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario have the most institutions involved in patenting pandemic mitigation technologies among the provinces. The study also indicated that Canada has a large talent pool innovating in these technologies.

Impact of COVID-19: An IP Office Perspective

Next, , Head of IP Analytics and Data Insights at (‘UKIPO’) described the pandemic’s effect on UKIPO and generally on IP.

The UK was hit badly by COVID-19, with nearly 1400 daily deaths during the second wave (January 2021). The economy also took the brunt of 3 national lockdowns. However, UKIPO leveraged its recent IP modernization activities to quickly transition to remote working with changes in workflow, such as moving from fax to electronic issuance of official correspondence. Confronting the pandemic, UKIPO declared ‘interrupted days’ from March 24 to July 29, 2020. They extended document filing or opposition deadlines falling between these days and temporarily changed renewal fees to offer flexibility to businesses affected by pandemic. Workplaces adapted such measures as virtual recruitment and staff mental health and wellbeing initiatives.

Evaluating COVID-19’s impact on UKIPO’s core services, design and patent application filing increased slightly during the pandemic, while trademark filings increased significantly. Similarly, patent and design grants followed normal trends, but trademark registrations dipped before rising sharply in August 2020. Examiner productivity increased as well. The UK ranked 2^nd among the world’s fastest growing trademark registers (31% growth in 2019-20). Comparatively, trademark filings in Canada declined. The reason for unprecedented growth in global trademark trends during the pandemic is unclear, with some indication of increased investment in new brands. This will be curious to investigate, especially because market shocks like a pandemic tend to decrease new filings. UKIPO is deeply invested in researching factors that drive IP demand and filings.

In summary, UKIPO responded promptly to the pandemic with formal, staffing and customer-oriented changes which helped increase productivity.

ExploreIP: Leveraging Public Sector IP for Commercialization

The final presenters were , Director of IP, and , Senior Policy Analyst – Project Manager at ExploreIP, both from . They discussed the project, Canada’s intellectual property marketplace.

ExploreIP is a database of public sector patents with search capabilities for businesses to identify licensable inventions and connect directly with patent holders. It was launched in August 2019 in collaboration with IP Australia and currently lists over 4000 patent families sourced from 51 Canadian public sector organizations. ExploreIP was developed with an aim to assist Canadian businesses, especially SMEs, in finding technologies within public sector patents that align with their business goals and help them grow. In response to the pandemic, ISED added a new COVID-19 category in April 2020 listing pandemic-related technologies.

The platform allows businesses to reach patent owners through a dedicated page for each patent, which includes keyword search, notifications about newly added technologies, and licensing status details. The database is updated through organizational accounts wherein a public sector institution can modify their patent portfolio with new entries. This is supplemented by an automated process where ExploreIP retrieves new patents from other public databases. ExploreIP will enter its next phase of development in April 2021: optimizing the platform, enhancing the search function, and adding other types of IP and market intelligences.

ExploreIP is a much-needed initiative to help businesses search licensable patents and inventions by Canadian public institutions, access licensing and collaboration opportunities, and connect directly with IP holders. Interested business are encouraged to access the platform .

In conclusion, the panel discussions brought forward insightful points on creating robust innovation pipelines and making them shock-proof in the future. While Canada’s low pandemic-related patent filing trends suggest a need for a concerted effort to increase conversion of its scientific specialization to IP, best practices employed by UKIPO and ExploreIP against COVID-19 offer ideas which we can share in and follow.

Gurbir Sidhu is an IPilogue Contributing Editor and LLM candidate at Osgoode Professional Development.

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After a full day of highly successful sessions and speakers, the wrapped up with a line of esteemed presenters speaking on ‘’.��

2019 Intellectual Property Awareness and Use Survey

Senior Policy Advisor Teodora Cosac began the session by introducing the 2019 , a collaborative effort by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), and Statistics Canada. 

While IP protection is often credited with significant contributions toward innovation and economic growth, little research has been conducted on the actual relationship between the formal use of IP and the economic performance of the firms that use it. The IPAUS sought to address this policy question and data gap by conducting empirical, firm-level analyses on 16,000 enterprises across Canada. The survey targeted businesses of varying sizes and across all sectors of the economy, and its response rate of over 75% was consistent across all segments. Data was collected on business structure and activities, executive demographics, IP awareness, and IP use. 

The data aims to establish a baseline for the effectiveness of IP strategy for firms and to improve our understanding of whether businesses think IP is relevant for growth and why. Additionally, the IPAUS profiled underrepresented IP-using groups, as well as IP “non-users”, and their IP-related challenges and decisions . 

Importance of Patents (And How to Calculate It) 

Next, Dr. Andrew W Torrance, distinguished law professor and Senior Director of the Intellectual Property Department at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, spoke to his research on . This method of database and network analysis views patent publications and their citations as forming a vast network of “nodes” (publications) and “links” (citations), representing the millions of choices that inventors make when developing their patented ideas. By treating this kind of data as a network, one can learn more about where patent knowledge is generated, where it flows, and how patterns have, and likely will, change. 

Dr. Torrance and his colleagues used the “Eigenvector” algorithm, which works especially well for analyzing patent documents. Patent value often correlates with citations, but raw citations can be misleading. In a network context, patents found in the middle of a network may seem more important; but the Eigenvector centrality and hierarchical graphing techniques calculate specific metrics based on emerging patterns to show that patents out on the fringes of networks may be way more important than initially thought. 

The resulting network offers a panoramic view of distinct technological sectors by disclosing closely related technologies for which its patents will cluster together. The approach has also revealed important positive correlations, such as that between citations and the monetary value of a patent, and between patent importance and litigation. 

Using international patent data from , global patterns of patent knowledge flow can also be collated and graphed. Results show developing countries unfortunately still participate relatively much less. Data research in worldwide patent importance can help to assess company and country innovation performance both generally and in specific technology areas.

ISED’s Data Strategy: From Vision to Implementation 

The session concluded with a presentation by Chief Results and Delivery Officer, Julie McAuley, who canvassed for creating, protecting, managing, using, and sharing data. The strategy followed the Government’s acknowledgement that it must improve its approach to data with respect to governance, funding, procuring, authorities, rule sets, and digital backbone within the next decade. 

Having begun its consultation period in 2018, ISED could quickly develop a data strategy roadmap for the federal public service based on 21 recommendations covering 4 pillars: governance, peoples and culture, environment and digital infrastructure, and treating data as an asset. To date, ISED has applied their recommendations in numerous areas of growth, including investments in talent, the establishment of a departmental data catalogue, the implementation of an analytics sandbox, and pilot training in artificial intelligence (AI) at all levels. 

The government is looking to invest in future-minded talent who can and will view data as a strategic asset. ISED has also clarified that its roadmap is “ever-green” in nature and subject to new innovations, developments, needs, and values. With a continued focus on the future, the government’s numerous next-step directives are compatible with the shifting landscape of digital information to come. 

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Wrapping up the 4th Annual IP Data & Research Conference, the final session’s three speakers came to a poignant consensus about the importance of data availability and collaboration between governmental and non-governmental entities. Accessible, usable, and high-quality data is proving to be highly invaluable to effective policy-making, and will no doubt only rise in significance in the future. 

Emily Xiang is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is an IPilogue Writer and an executive for the Intellectual Property Society of Osgoode.

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Robert Embree began his presentation with a brief description of and their role in protecting the distinctive look and feel of an invention. He then highlighted industrial designs’ recent gain in prominence by mentioning the over their design rights. An internal study conducted by CIPO has revealed that Canada is currently lagging behind many developed countries in protecting industrial designs. This finding sparked of the effects of holding industrial designs on an average firm’s revenue per employee and net income per employee. was conducted using a unique Canadian data set obtained with the help of of Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. The study covered 500 Canadian firms operating over the span of 25 years, from 1990 to 2014. It controlled for many factors, most importantly for the effects of obtaining patents on a firm’s revenue. The study found that by acquiring industrial design protections, the average firm’s revenue per employee increased by 19%, net income per employee increased by 23%, and, as a result of the addition of only 10% more industrial designs to the firm’s IP stock, the revenue per employee increased by 1%. The latter finding was particularly significant since the study found that a 10% increase in the number of patents that a firm holds only resulted in a 1.2% increase of revenue per employee. This study’s findings indicate that although patents tend to receive more attention in discussions about economic growth, Canadian firms could experience significant economic benefits by accumulating industrial designs.

After Robert, Alissar Hassan gave an informative about IP rights and business profitability from an Australian perspective. An conducted by IP Australia on the effects of IP rights on market concentration and competition found that the use of IP rights has doubled since the early 2000s. The study also concluded that IP owning businesses tend to gain higher profits compared to their non-IP-owning counterparts, particularly in the manufacturing and wholesale trade sectors. Although the evidence regarding the effects of IP rights on market concentration was inconclusive, the study showed that accumulating different types of IP in the forms of patents, trademarks, and industrial designs tends to positively impact business profitability in Australia. Alissar brought up an interesting point about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on trademark filings in Australia. Although tends to be positive, trademark filings with IP Australia soared in 2020 despite as a result of the pandemic. Researchers at IP Australia attribute this interesting trend to the adaptation of businesses to the new circumstances and are looking to further investigate the topic.

The panel concluded with a Q&A session which once again highlighted the positive effects of industrial designs on business revenue. Given the findings by CIPO researchers regarding the work that Canada needs to do in order to catch up with other developed countries in protecting industrial designs, IP rights seem to play a more topical role in our country’s economic prosperity than ever.

Written by Bonnie Hassanzadeh, IPilogue Managing Editor and Clinic Fellow at the IP Innovation Clinic.

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a) 2021 Economic Reality of Climate Tech in view of IP and Data

and a hotbed for Canadian entrepreneurs in cleantech innovation. Cleantech overlaps with many industries and generates opportunities to disrupt the market in climate change mitigation technologies (CCMT), applied material, green chemistries, green technologies, electric vehicles, low carbon and net zero buildings, recycling and renewable technologies, and photovoltaic energy sectors. At the Conference, Leah Lawrence quoted that Cleantech is outpacing other industries, including the artificial intelligence sector. In Ontario, the electric power generation, transmission and distribution sector, inclusive of new cleantech energy storage companies, such as NRStor and Hydrostor, has seen a . However, it is captivating that the growth of these sectors largely relies upon the collection of datasets. The term “data” is omnipresent in patent claims across sectors, globally and in Canada. A clean tech company, Semios, has created a crop harvest remote control which assesses and optimises bugs’ and insects’ responses, diseases, and plant health conditions in actual time through data collection and predictive analysis. It disrupts and eliminates insect pheromone mating using wireless networks in the most difficult of plantation environments. This project was sponsored in part by the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). SDTC has contributed significant work towards the Government’s vision of a clean & green economy. 

b) Growth Strategies in the Clean Technology Patent Landscape & Innovation Assets Collective (Canada’s Patent Collective)

For entrepreneurs to gain some monopoly over their inventions and innovations and disrupt the cleantech space, it is crucial for them to understand the primary importance of “commercialisation” and “freedom to operate” in the world. In Canada, only 7.7 % of active assets patent filing are Canadian owned inventions. Most of Canada’s patent owners are from the United States (37%), Japan, Germany, and France (each at ~8%), which is alarming. In view of this, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has created many pilot programs to incentivise entrepreneurs to promote and support their clean technology inventions and innovation. CIPO has expedited patent examination services for Cleantech innovators. Moreover, they have partnered with the WIPO Green network, a marketplace platform, to build commercial relationships with cleantech entrepreneurs and customers. They also created an Intellectual Property (IP) analytic database via CCMT and (IAC). This initiative intends to support Canada’s data driven clean energy industry to foster its IP growth, generate value, build influence in the global market, and increase its rights in IP infringement suits. The major hindrance for cleantech entrepreneurs is funding to research and develop the invention. However, STDC and IAC offer many creative support systems and have generated IP Hedge funds, IP Credits, and merit-based awards for companies. Further, to mitigate the freedom to operate challenge, the IAC has fashioned an IP intelligence & prior art library to have a collective aspect which will consequently protect them from low quality patent assertions, navigate through patent pooling by acquiring third party rights, and working around having a landscape to operate freely without the deterrence of litigation.

c) What will be the implications of the “tech” in cleantech?

The suggest 850 Canadian firms have engaged with the clean technology sector. Hence, the implication of “tech” in cleantech is a pertinent discussion which usually arises from commoditisation, standardisation, globalisation, and market competitors. While conducting their due diligence, investors primarily emphasize and question potential companies about “whether there is any IP owned”, “how many IP” and “whether they are protected or disclosed widely”. Further, they also prefer Canadian companies for many reasons. While Canada has been a hub and spoke for among many other sectors, its strongest pursuit has not been cleantech so far i.e. solar plants or telecommunication sector, Mike Andrade, CEO of Morgan Solar, advised that the cleantech present or potential entrepreneur/innovators should be aware of the cautionary tales in the market and their IP rights. 

In conclusion, the good news is that support from the government, CIPO, and other institutions can help Canadian entrepreneurs to better manage their IP portfolios and invest in the cleantech market. Canada’s commitment to accelerate its reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by will forge many opportunities for cleantech SMEs and large entrepreneurs.

Written by Aishwerya Kansal, IPilogue Contributor. Aishwerya is pursuing Master’s in Law in International Business Laws at Osgoode Hall Law School, and she is also an IP Innovation Clinic Fellow.

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, the Deputy Minister for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), kicked off the event with opening remarks. He emphasized the importance of bringing together IP members from academia, the private sector, and the public sector to foster an inclusive IP community, inspire innovative thinking, and work together to improve Canada’s intangible economy. Kennedy noted that events like this would help develop a more durable IP structure for Canada’s national and international interests.

Kennedy concluded by emphasizing the importance of developing IP knowledge and structures within the growing digitized economy. By expanding Canada’s IP infrastructure, our institutions would be better equipped to utilize data strategies for evidence-based decision-making in a variety of spheres, including economic policies, business initiatives, and national security programs.

Following Kennedy’s introductory remarks, , Founder of CIGI, gave a keynote speech. Balsillie offered a very critical analysis of the current state of Canada’s intangible economy. He argued that Canada is currently playing “catch up” after failing to invest in IP assets and structures. By missing the international shift from traditional to intangible markets, Canada is now economically and politically vulnerable, especially as a dependent importer of IP assets.

Canada is the only country that saw a decrease in patent applications relating to Artificial Intelligence between 2016 – 2018. Canada also saw a decline in research partnerships between Canadian institutions and foreign entities over the same period. Balsillie argues that these trends are not only detrimental to the Canada’s security and sovereignty, but also indicate clear shortcomings in the Canadian IP framework.

In his presentation, Balsillie emphasized Canada’s need to establishing a better framework and policy guidelines to protect IP and data in Canada. He argued that there is a clear lack of IP knowledge among businesses and the Government, which has led to the spread of misinformation and the development of ineffective IP frameworks. Balsillie bluntly states that real IP experts are needed in positions of power to update Canada’s policy infrastructure and institutions to better match the flexible, dynamic needs of the intangible economy.

IP and data are now the most valuable business, national, and international assets. They not only shape the economy, and public and private sphere, but are also the primary drivers in economic grown and national security. Furthermore, intangible stock assets in IP tie together policy considerations such as foreign investment, domestic economic development, and national security. In other words, intangible assets such as IP and data act as the new foundation of international political-economic status and stability. The world now lives in an era of intangibles, and this conference is one of many IP initiatives telling us that Canada’s digital transformation is overdue.

Adele Zhang is an IPilogue Contributing Editor interested in the intersection between IP law and sports, and technology.

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