On April 16, 2015, Mr. Jean-Francois Bédard –
Industrial Research Advisor for the Québec Ministry of the
Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade (MEIE) –
announced that the Premier Brevet program (First
Patent program) is projected to be launched in May 2015. This
announcement was made in Montréal during his presentation at
the International Intellectual Property Forum – Quebec
(FORPIQ).
The Premier Brevet program was initially presented in
2013 as part of the Politique nationale de la recherche et de
l'innovation 2014-2019 (National Policy on Research and on
Innovation 2014-2019). We first wrote about the program
here (link only in French).
The Premier Brevet program will likely offer financial
assistance and technical assistance for Québec-based small
and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are filing their first patent
application. One of the objectives of the program is to increase
the number of patents issued to Québec-based SMEs.
