Editorial - 25-13

A new report on jointly developed cross-border intellectual property (IP) collaboration could provide powerful new ammunition for Canadian governments in their quest for increased foreign direct investment. The report by a sub-committee of the Canada-California Strategic Innovation Partnership (CCSIP) details the IP environment in both jurisdictions for the purpose of helping researchers and others strike solid collaborative agreements in which the IP can attract private sector investment (see page 3) .

It also demonstrates that Canada may have an advantage when it comes to boosting university-industry research collaboration and securing global mandates for major companies seeking new academic partners.

US researchers are bound by voluminous restrictions stemming from the Bayh-Dol Act and other legislation, while Canada's IP environment is relatively flexible. That's mainly due to the lack of a national IP policy for academic research.

The upshot is that organizations are able to alter the policies governing IP generated with their funding to entice more industry engagement. The recent change to the IP policy of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council is a case in point. Its new IP policy allows institutions receiving NSERC funding to assign IP to companies in certain circumstances, with the objective of increasing university-industry interaction and commercialization. Now if we can just solve the nation's chronic shortage of venture capital, Canada's research funding may begin to generate substantial returns on investment (see page 6).