Over the past two weeks, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has launched eight new tools to inform Canadian businesses about doing business abroad with their intellectual property (IP), and help them demystify the application process for patents, trademarks and industrial designs.
These products support three of the five pillars of CIPO's Five-Year Business Strategy to advance innovation, build IP awareness and education, and offer a modern service experience. They can be found on CIPO's IP Toolbox page.
Under the Exporting tab, businesses looking to expand to new destinations will benefit from understanding the differences and similarities between Canada and the United States, the European Union, China, or India, with respect to IP:
- A general fact sheet about doing business abroad — Protecting your IP
- Four guides:
- Protecting your IP in the United States
- Protecting your IP in the European Union
- Protecting your IP in China
- Protecting your IP in India
Under the IP Basics tab, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and innovators who are curious about the steps of an application for a patent, or for trademark or industrial design registration, can navigate one of these IP roadmaps:
- Your path to patent grant
- Your path to trademark registration
- Your path to industrial design registration
Quick Facts
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SMEs owning IP are 60% more likely to be high-growth SMEs and 4 times more likely to export.
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IP-intensive industries contribute $332B to Canada's GDP, and 2 million jobs in Canada.