Left Behind in Their Own Market

"It's embarrassing. We can't even have meaningful ownership of our own market when it comes to intangible assets."

"We've had no growth in resident patent filings in the last ten years compared to everybody else, the Americans and the Chinese particularly."

"[Without a major course correction], we're going to become a middle-income country."

Jim Hinton, co-founder, Innovation Asset Collective 

"It speaks to the ambitions of China, and the means by which they go about really doubling down on science and technology."

"They have a clear agenda."

"We're spending here and there, hoping that it will all result in something, but it's not focused. It's not intentional."

Robert Asselin, senior vice-president, policy, Business Council of Canada

"[Chinese scientists should] establish lofty aspirations and high ideals of daring to create."

"For technologies in which we can rapidly break through and solve problems in a timely manner, we must step up quickly."

"For technologies that are strategic and require long time frames for success, we must deploy them in advance. We must assemble first-rate talent with a view to the world, attract foreign high-end talent, and provide internationally competitive and attractive environmental conditions for foreign scientists to work in China."

Chinese President Xi Jinping

China has targeted semiconductors as a key technology for its future economy. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Several days ago news media reported that a Chinese corporation partially owned by the government of China was buying out a UK manufacturer of chips, in an extremely tight chip-producing market, with China in competition to control that market impacting on a scarcity seen by car manufacturers with a chip shortage. Enough controversy ensued from within Britain itself that the government was forced to reverse its blase attitude in allowing the transaction to proceed, now stating it is prepared to 'review' the sale of the semiconductor manufacturer to the Chinese company.

 

Canada seems set to fail in its practical need to secure intellectual property rights toward building next-generation technology, leaving the field wide open for foreign countries to swoop right into Canada registering their own patents in Canada, leaving the country adrift and potentially dependent on other countries' innovative patented technologies, Canada's own languishing in lassitude of opportunity. Chinese consumer electronics and smartphone manufacturer, Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications alone, filed no fewer than 281 single patents in 2019-20 at Canada's intellectual property office.

Lawyers from intellectual property (IP) law firms in both Vancouver and across Canada there has been a spike in interest from Canadian companies looking to file for trademark protection in China. Photo iStock

Qualcomm, an American semiconductor company followed on the top-ten list and right behind were several other American firms, along with two Chinese multinationals, Huawei Technologies and Alibaba Group. Saudi Aramco also appeared in the Canadian patent lineup among the top ten. All ten top patent filers were foreign, with companies funnelling huge resources ensuring they have priority rights on the technologies of the future; from smartphone software to chemical ingredients for car batteries. 

 

Canada, fundamentally, is asleep at the wheel of technological progress, failing to consolidate its own technology ownership.

The Canadian government signed on to a number of free-trade agreements which give free rein to foreign companies to secure crucial IP in Canada, while Canadian companies pass on filing those same IP rights abroad. China's recent emergence and its urgent interest in controlling technological advances worldwide sees American and Chinese companies in competition for technological supremacy while U.S. firms for the time being continue to dominate the Canadian patent landscape. 

 

China's haste stems from President Xi's 2017 strategy statement, for his China 2050 innovation program; essentially to sweep the global market in technological innovation of all kinds.

 

Canada is filing an increasing number of patent applications but is being outpaced by countries such as China, which became the first to reach the million-patent mark in a single year, according to a new report from the World Intellectual Property Organization.

 

This, in the face of the Government of Canada having signed free trade agreements and other IP-specific treaties allowing foreign companies to collect vast amounts of intellectual property rights in Canada, while failing to provide Canadian companies with the tools required to develop their own patents, which has created a "growing IP trade deficit in Canada", seeing foreign companies in possession of valuable intellectual property rights resulting on rents on domestic firms, according to Natalie Raffoul, lawyer at intellectual property firm Brion Raffoul LLP. 

The headquarters of ride-hailing app Didi Global in Beijing. China is not only expanding patent ownership in other countries, it is, unlike Canada, tightening its grip on local companies involved with sensitive online data. Photo by Yan Cong / Bloomberg

"The fact that foreign firms are the top filers for IP in Canada suggests that our competitors are much more aggressive in the global race to accumulate IP, and we need to take a page out of their playbook."

"Canada needs to prioritize the generation and protection of IP, and our governments need to do more to educate businesses and incentivize them to develop sophisticated, modern IP strategies to keep pace with the global economy."

Dana O'Born, director of strategic initiatives, Council of Canadian Innovators

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