Thoughts on "Intellectual Property in Canada" from the Conference Board of Canada

Christmas came early for innovation policy wonks

This will be the last CanInnovate post of 2025. Happy holidays!

A few months ago, the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) published “Intellectual Property in Canada: Technology Specialization and Competitive Advantage”, the results of an impressive research process led by Zafer Sonmez. In this report, the CBoC team categorizes Canadian competitiveness in a variety of technology sectors through a careful examination of patenting trends, benchmarked against the world (and OECD) averages. Their results paint a bleak picture of Canadian competitiveness and IP ownership, but provide actionable insights for policy makers seeking to change this. I strongly encourage everyone to read their report, which is available freely at the link below.

This wake-up call is perfectly timed, coinciding with a paper co-authored by myself and David Durand entitled “Intellectual Property is Economic and National Security”, in which we make the argument that sound IP management is critical for economic security and sovereignty. Where we provide the context that articulates why intellectual property is so important, the CBoC report highlights precisely where Canada can capitalize on existing strengths, and where we must improve.

In this post, I provide a brief overview of the report’s framework and methodology, and pull on a few threads that I think deserve specific attention. I will not cover the entire report, which contains a wealth of information and should be required reading for policy makers on the innovation file.

I would like to commend Mr. Sonmez and the CBoC team for an insightful and actionable contribution to an urgent debate about Canadian competitiveness and sovereignty.

A brief overview of methodology

The CBoC report is built on the basis of patent ownership data. Their conclusions revolve around two key metrics: the Relative Specialization Index (RSI) and the National Shift (NS). RSI, in a nutshell, measures the degree to which Canada holds a concentration of patents in a particular sector relative to that of the rest of the world, while the NS measures the pace of new patenting in that sector relative to the rest of the world. A high value of RSI indicates existing specialization, while a high value of NS indicates that Canada has a strong rate of invention in the sector, pointing to the possibility of emerging specialization. They use these metrics to categorize each sector considered as one of:

1. Leading inventive strength (RSI > 1, NS > 0), meaning that Canada has both existing specialization and a strong rate of invention;

2. Slipping inventive strength (RSI > 1, NS < 0), meaning that while Canada has specialization, the rest of the world is catching up;

3. Lagging inventive strength (RSI < 1, NS < 0), meaning that we are both behind and falling farther behind; and

4. Emerging inventive strength (RSI < 1, NS > 0), meaning that while Canada is currently behind, we are catching up the rest of the world.

The report further examines policy aimed at technological advancement and ranks each sector according to whether or not Canada’s inventive strength reflects stated policy priorities (spoiler: it mostly doesn’t).

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

It is interesting to note the mismatch between the typical language around Canadian specialization as reported in the various national innovation strategies and the realities exposed by this report. For example, Canada is generally regarded as having a strong biotech sector, and while we do indeed have specialization here, the report makes clear that we are resting on our laurels and in danger of losing this distinction.

Nanotechnology stands out among the surprising opportunities in the report. While we lack strong specialization, it appears that we are on track to change this. This is a trend on which we should double down.

Probably the most striking result was the near-complete misalignment in technology sectors relating to agriculture. As was highlighted in my previous interview with Mark Olson, Canada has the potential to be the world’s bread basket. We have unmatched potential in agriculture, with abundant natural reserves of nearly everything necessary while being one of the few countries on the planet whose capacity for food production will not be negatively impacted by a warming world. Canada could project power through food export over the next several decades if we chose to use our myriad natural advantages.

At FORPIQ 2025, a panel discussion on Canada’s potential as an agricultural powerhouse highlighted that the second largest food exporter in the world (after the US) is the Netherlands. This is based entirely on highly efficient and innovative agricultural practices, given that their available arable land area is miniscule compared to Canada’s. Their examples demonstrates just how much room we have to improve. Our failure to secure competitive advantage in this area represents an enormous wasted opportunity for sovereignty-focused economic development.

One of the most concerning issues highlighted in the report relates to the distribution of patent ownership. CBoC shows that Canada lags far behind where organizations with large patent portfolios are concerned - but patent ownership tells only a part of the story. Where access to or control over patents is granted through licenses instead of assignment, it will not show up in the ownership data. In other words, the reality is even worse than what the report shows.

The fact that licensing details cannot be extracted from public data points to a systemic failure to collect that data rather than any weakness of the report. Rather, this highlights the importance of ensuring that data is collected on control over and access to Canadian IP, especially in cases where the IP is the result of publicly funded research. The recent submission by the SAIL team to the House of Common Standing Committee on Science and Research, as well as the guidance we have previously built around the Simple Agreement for Innovation Licensing (SAIL), give some more detail on the kind of data needed to address this.

What’s next

While it is to be expected that Canada lacks incumbent competitive advantage in many sectors, the number of sectors that are deemed national priorities in which we lack even emerging inventive strength should be a wakeup call for policy makers that current fragmented efforts are not effective.

This is not just a matter of economic competitiveness, but also one of economic security. Priority sectors in that Canada funds heavily but in which we lack emerging inventive strength in particular should be reviewed carefully, as these sectors are likely to be leaking IP. The CBoC report and our paper on the connection between IP and economic security combine to form a roadmap to address these challenges: Allocate funding to the early stages of research commercialization in sectors of national interest in which Canada lacks competitive advantage, and use slipping and lagging inventive strength as bellwethers for weaknesses in Canada’s approach to IP management.

Above all, recognize and prioritize investment in Canada’s natural strengths. If Canada is to secure its economic and technological sovereignty, we will need to be strategic in our approach. We are not big enough to be leaders in every sector, but we are well positioned to dominate a few. This report shows clearly how our inventive resources can be allocated to achieve maximal impact.

In our work connecting IP to economic security, one of our core recommendations was to create an open-source intelligence agency that continuously monitors emerging technology trends through analysis of patents and research funding. This CBoC report shows us just how valuable that capability would be.