Part I – Productivity or Talking Points?
An Opinion entitled
“Addressing Canada’s productivity troubles starts with producing what the world wants” appeared in The Globe & Mail a few weeks ago. There was a chance it would shed some light on the concept of productivity and how to improve it within the CDN economy. It did, but the proposal was overshadowed by talking points and catchphrases. This is a shame because when you take the time to flesh out the proposal, it has merit. Let’s spend a few cycles looking at what was proposed and how it went wrong.
proposal
The proposal made its appearance in the fifth paragraph, which reads “So, when our governments say that they want to address our country’s productivity crisis, the two of us can’t help but raise our hands with a solution: we need to dramatically increase the rate at which we protect and commercialize new ideas and the intellectual property (IP) that often starts in publicly funded research.”
It continues “… research ends up orphaned on the shelves of institutions that are unable to fund its commercialization … these cash strapped organizations are often raided by foreign multinationals .. ”.
This all sounds very familiar. In the Spring of 2020 I considered the steps needed to retain the spoils of publicly funded research in Canada. The short answer: we need to know what technology is there and Canadian private capital needs to invest at the same fundamental level as the foreign entities. This is why IPmart was formed. Meanwhile, the pundits are still discussing, four and a half years later.
Now, let’s recognize and think about how the proposal was overshadowed and became lost.
catchphrases
Marketing language might include excessive or colourful modifiers, dramatic assertions and catchphrases. Some quite like marketing language, thinking it will add emphasis and generate excitement. However, as pointed out before, it often hides or distracts from the actual content.
Examples of all three can be found in the Opinion, including “…dramatically limiting…”, “From coast to coast to coast, Canada is rich in world-class …”, and “… by our best and brightest”. The latter two are overused and largely meaningless phrases that do not add to or reinforce any discussion of productivity. The former needs to be at least marginally supported before such strong terminology is appropriate.
talking points
The Opinion also succumb to talking points. It struck there was a stronger desire to present the talking points than to focus on or tie into productivity. A number of the points are recurring fixtures within the Canadian IP discussion.
It is indicated that Canada imports “nearly double the IP-backed products and services that we export”. It then goes on to ask “… don’t we produce things the world wants?”. The simple answer is that we do, or else we would not have any exports. A more important question: what are heavily IP-backed products? I suspect this refers to products that incorporate technology that is protected by IP; think patents.
By far, the clearest example here is semiconductors and electronics, of all sorts. Anything with an Integrated Circuit (IC) in it is strongly IP-backed. That said, Canada has not encouraged the development of this industry over the years or decades, for that matter. Today, we do not have large companies with years of R&D and the associated patent generation.
On the other hand, Canada has historically focused on IP-light industries. Natural resources such as mining, lumber and energy are but three examples. Yes, the world is changing and there is IP in all of these areas, but it would not be to near the same extent as semiconductors.
IP commercialization is another slogan that appeared in the Opinion. A simple, plain language reading of the phrase suggests one is commercializing the IP i.e. patent assertion and IP licensing. However, based on use of the phrase here and in other forums it seems to describe the commercialization of IP-protected technology, which is a component within an IP-backed product. Further, the technology might stem from publicly funded research, tying into this thread. That interpretation fits with its use in the Opinion and the Canadian IP pundits at large.
path forward
Canada needs to find and focus on our strengths, and develop export driven technologies around them. This is different than chasing the trending topics, which we are still doing today. At the same time, we need to know what has been developed and patented, and is “sitting on the shelves” in our publicly funded institutions. This unearthed IP will not generally define a product. Rather, it will provide a technology that solves a problem or becomes a building block in a product or method. Finally, private capital needs to invest. We should not accept a public employee pension fund proudly crowing about investing in a food delivery service in Belgium.
As discussed in 2023, Canada needs to pick strategic areas for industry and IP growth. Energy might be one of these because of our historic strength in the area. To the same end, we have to look at export driven industries i.e. products people want, to drive productivity not the internal money-cycling industries on which Canada likes to focus.
As we develop new areas and support existing ones we protect our productivity with IP. We create a barrier to entry for those that might think of recreating what Canada developed. If crafted properly and as permitted by “the art” some of this IP could apply to verticals outside the one in which it was developed. Once this happens the IP owner might be able to license into a non-competing vertical, accessing a high-margin revenue stream.
Moreover, forget the studies, statistics and catchphrases. Let’s think about and discuss how we move the idea forward. At the moment the Opinion left this dangling. Part II of this discussion will look at a current, real bit of publicly funded IP that is sitting on the shelf.