Just over 15 months ago, on April 26, 2018, the federal
government unveiled what it billed as Canada's first
comprehensive Intellectual Property Strategy (the "IP
Strategy"), designed to help Canadians understand,
protect and access intellectual property (see our previous Goodmans
Updates here and here). On August 1, 2019, federal
Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains announced the implementation of
part of the IP Strategy as follows:
Cleantech IP
The IP Strategy called for the establishment of a pilot project
named the "Patent Collective" to assist small- and
medium-sized enterprises ("SMEs") with
their patent and other IP needs. The Patent Collective program was
said to have two overarching purposes: (i) to help SMEs operating
in a specific technological area grow by supporting their patent
and other IP needs, and (ii) to provide the government with insight
into the IP issues faced by those SMEs. In the IP Strategy, the
government announced funding of $30M CAD over
