The federal government has finally found the partner that will help Quebec entrepreneurs and start-ups make better use of their intellectual property (IP). The Movement of Quebec Innovation Accelerators (MAIN) will receive the Quebec portion of the $90 million earmarked by Ottawa for this purpose under a four-year program called ÉleverlaPI.
While Canadian and Quebec innovators and entrepreneurs are full of ideas and good intentions, their expertise is generally lacking when the time comes to protect them or make them flourish. The ÉleverlaIP program wants to help them better defend or market their ideas, or why not, acquire those of others. MAIN, a Quebec network of a few dozen organizations dedicated to launching and then supporting start-up in different activity sectors associated with new technologies, will take care of the Quebec portion of this program.
The federal boost will strengthen a network that has already existed since 2018. It will facilitate access for start-ups to specialized resources in the management of intellectual property, the sinews of war in technology. “We see that Canada is at the top of the production of patents in the world. But we are less good at transforming these patents into business models, or to make money from them, says Louis-Félix Binette, general manager of MAIN. Our goal will be to help bridge the gap between producing patents and commercializing them. »
Initiatives supported by the RaiseIP program target the grassroots: raising awareness and training people in companies and within accelerators about the importance of intellectual property. “Is it the same as a patent? illustrates in the interrogative form Louis-Félix Binette. No, because the objective of an IP strategy can be to sell a patent, or to acquire others. »
Interested entrepreneurs will thus have quicker access to law firms specializing in the matter. They will also be able to get in touch more easily with the development and innovation transfer company Axelys. This non-profit organization, created by Quebec in 2021, has the mission of accelerating the design and marketing of innovative technologies resulting from public research.
Quebec at the forefront
In so-called advanced economies, such as those of Quebec and Canada, increasing wealth increasingly depends on innovation, ideas or technologies tested in the laboratory before being marketed. Poorly protected, these ideas can end up in the hands of rival or foreign companies, and the value they create will escape the Canadian economy.
In the country, many voices have been raised in recent years to decry the role of foreign companies in funding, in particular, research in Canadian universities. Huawei, for example, has repatriated to China over the years the fruit of many research projects carried out in Canada. Hence the implementation by Ottawa from 2018 of a strategy aimed at strengthening the protection of Canadian innovations. The ÉleverlaIP program stems from this strategy and will run until 2026.
The part of the 90 million reserved for this program which will go to Quebec innovations will be proportional to the economic weight of the province, we promise. However, according to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, the province is in a way the national locomotive in terms of the creation of intellectual property.
We see that Canada is at the top of the production of patents in the world. But we are less good at transforming these patents into business models, or at making money from them.
By way of comparison, a quarter of Quebec companies held at least one intellectual property title in 2019, compared to less than one in six companies in Ontario, and less than one in eight elsewhere in Canada. Moreover, the proportion of Quebec companies that have a trademark in Canada or internationally is the highest in the country.
Despite this, what Canadian and Quebec companies pay for the innovations they import exceeds the revenues that their own innovations bring them. MAIN says it has helped more than 400 Quebec companies in four years to define a strategy for protecting their innovations that will help reverse this trend. It is preparing to redouble its efforts over the next four years.
“Quebec entrepreneurs dream of changing the world,” says Louis-Félix Binette. Want to save the world? You need to equip yourself to last long enough for your solution to work. To have an impact, you have to be trained on these subjects. It is not the thirst for entrepreneurship that is lacking. We have the right energy, we just need to equip our entrepreneurs well. »