Should Canada treat its intellectual property as a national asset?

In a knowledge economy intellectual property is a national asset, and should be recognized, encouraged and celebrated as such.  But a mercantilist approach to intellectual property is as self and mutually damaging as trade mercantilism. 

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Yes, Canada should treat its intellectual property as both a national and an international asset in the interest of improving human health, achievement, and prosperity world-wide. A well-modulated intellectual property framework of policies, laws, regulations, and enforcement provisions are a necessary, although not sufficient, element of innovation and creativity to keep an economy such as Canada’s—and the world economy more generally—at the leading edge.

To make full use of intellectual property as an asset, other structural factors affecting potential supply of new and improved goods and services will have to be in place at the same time. These other factors include the degree of openness of various countries, the amount of competition in each economy and in the world more generally, tax policies, the quality and quantity of labour, the structure and amount of funding of research and development (R &D), relevant institutions, and, importantly, the willingness and capacity of each society to create and to adapt and absorb new ideas, technologies, cultural influences, and techniques.

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Asking this question is to answer it. Of course we should! Under what conceivable construct should we not? There is no serious country in the world that does not consider its intellectual property a national asset.

 Everything from patents on scientific breakthroughs to copyrights on popular music is intellectual property. And all of it is an asset to the country which owns it.

Espionage in the 21st century is as much about stealing intellectual property as it is about defence and military strategy — although sometimes both are the same thing.

Obviously, intellectual property is a national asset. As such it should be development, nurtured and protected.

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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.   

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