I believe that innovation is the only long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. As an independent inventor, I appreciate the significantly reduced patent processing fees for small entities. Despite the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), however, there are considerable expenses in foreign protection of intellectual property. The cost of a PCT application is prohibitive even if only "Canada" is selected as the designated state.
Thus, if the Federal Government seeks R & D industrial strategy for competitiveness in the future, I suggest that a priority be given to streamlining and subsidising the international patent process. In this proposal, the Patent Office would accept only PCT applications at the same cost as the current Canadian patent application (at least for small entities) so that foreign patent protection would simply be a matter of selecting more designated states.
For your information, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has lowered patent fees for fiscal year 1999.
