Potter: Should Canada treat its intellectual property as a national asset?

By:

, /

10 October, 2011

By: Pitman Potter

Professor of Law at UBC and Hong Kong Bank Chair in Asian Research at UBC's Institute of Asian Research

Intellectual property is generally privately owned. IPR protection regimes are in effect an exercise of public authority to protect private interests through law and regulation. This combination of private property and public institutional protection invites consideration of the public policy underpinnings of IPR protection regimes – namely the effort to stimulate innovation by rewarding innovators with monopoly rights to their ideas. This in turn is thought to lead to technological development, economic growth and resulting benefits Hence IPR regimes should be assessed in light of their effects on innovation and resulting public benefits. Accordingly I would treat Canada’s capacity for innovation and Canada’s IPR protection regime developed to stimulate innovation as national assets. I would accept that intellectual property itself is a private asset that can be (but is not always) developed and deployed in the public interest. Therefore I would suggest that Canada’s IPR regime (and to the extent we have influence, the international IPR regime) should be managed in such a way as to promote Canada’s public interest in innovation and its application for the public good.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour …

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter