The IP Action Plan: Ontario’s strategic plan to drive innovation and improve the post-COVID ‎economic recovery

On July 17, 2020, the government of Ontario announced the province’s first Intellectual Property Action Plan, following recommendations of an Expert Panel on Intellectual Property (IP). The action plan will extend the work of the expert panel and is aimed at driving the province's long-term economic competitiveness by prioritizing the generation, protection, and commercialization of IP. The plan highlights the importance of ‎IP in Ontario’s economy, and its key role in growth as the economy recovers from the ‎COVID-19 related downturn.

In May 2019, the Ontario government established an Expert Panel on Intellectual Property led by Jim Balsillie as part of its efforts to review, update, and implement policy objectives and to advance the prosperity of Ontario in the modern global economy. As set out in the report, over the past thirty years, the digital transformation has brought a new economic reality in which wealth and power are derived from the ownership of IP and, more recently, the accumulation and control of data.

The Expert Panel was tasked with creating an action plan for the development of a provincial IP framework to fully exploit the benefit of Ontario’s investments in research and development while maximizing the role that Ontario’s innovation intermediaries play in supporting this framework. The Expert Panel delivered its report in February 2020, titled “Intellectual Property in Ontario’s Innovation Ecosystem”.

The Expert Panel’s report highlighted that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) holding registered IP are more likely to ‎expand into domestic and international markets.‎ The report also highlighted that only 2% of Canadian SMEs hold at least one patent.

The Expert Panel’s report also stressed the need for more education on the importance of IP and how to ‎generate, exploit, and control valuable IP. Without proper protection and enforcement, innovations will be easily exploited by other parties without properly compensating the innovators who made it all possible. Other jurisdictions around the world understand this and invoke policies that promote understanding and protecting IP. Accordingly, educating SMEs on how best to protect those innovations will improve prosperity of SME’s in Ontario within Canada and on a global stage.

The report found that there was strong demand for programs directed to IP literacy to gain commercial advantage and economic benefits. The report concluded that commercialization of IP generated at publicly supported institutions can increase Ontario’s competitiveness and prosperity for generations to come. As the report said, IP and data are now the world’s most valuable business and national security assets.

The Intellectual Property Action Plan is the Ontario government’s first response to the recommendations and conclusions of the Expert Panel. The government’s intention with the plan is to drive the province's long-term economic competitiveness by prioritizing the generation, protection, and commercialization of IP. The Intellectual Property Action Plan established a Special Implementation Team on Intellectual Property‎ to continue the work of the Expert Panel. In particular, the  Special Implementation Team will assist the government of Ontario with the following:

• Clarifying the roles and mandates of commercialization offices within postsecondary and research institutions and organizations;
• Developing standardized, digital basic, and advanced IP education curriculums to strengthen IP literacy;
• Developing a governance framework for organizations that support entrepreneurial and innovation activities and ‎incorporate IP considerations; and‎
• Providing a centralized provincial resource to increase access to IP expertise and educational resources.

The Intellectual Property Action Plan also implemented supports for entrepreneurs and start-ups to harness the economic benefit of IP. Overall, the Intellectual Property Action Plan seeks to drive Ontario’s economic competitiveness by leveraging IP.

Coinciding with the Intellectual Property Action Plan, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) has committed $160 million in IP development financing to support IP-focused companies in Canada. BDC’s financing will provide companies that offer intangible assets with funding to increase scale and expedite their products to market.

The Intellectual Property Action Plan and BDC’s IP development financing are important initiatives that demonstrate a commitment to growing the Canadian economy by leveraging the value of Canadian IP. These programs will play a particularly important role in positioning Canada as a global economic leader as the COVID-19 lock-downs ease up and ‎economic recovery begins.

The interests of the provincial governments in IP is welcomed since IP is typically a federal matter. However, provincial interests in economic competitiveness make it important for provincial governments to be more proactive about IP issues.

To discuss how best to use your valuable IP to protect, commercialize, and exploit your business assets, please contact DLA Piper’s leading Intellectual Property & Technology team. We work with local and global businesses to advance their products and interests in the Canadian market and beyond.

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