Froese Law is pleased to announce it has partnered with Communitech as a service partner to provide clients in Ontario with access to the ElevateIP grant funding program. ElevateIP provides up to $100,000 in grant funding to help small- and medium-sized businesses understand, strategically manage and leverage their intellectual property.
As a service provider, Froese Law’s partnership with Communitech will enable new and existing clients to access non-repayable grant funding that can be used towards legal costs associated with their IP journey, from strategy development to implementation. Communitech’s ElevateIP program is industry agnostic, meaning companies from all industries are eligible to apply for funding.
To find out how Communitech’s ElevateIP funding program can help your business, contact Froese Law today.
What is ElevateIP?
ElevateIP is a federally funded, nationwide project designed to help business accelerators and incubators provide the tools Canadian startups need to understand, strategically manage and leverage their intellectual property.
The ElevateIP program is delivered by five organizations across Canada, each responsible for managing a specific region:
Communitech in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan
AccelerateIP in British Columbia
Springboard Atlantic in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador
ElevateIP in Alberta
momentumIP in Quebec
What is intellectual property (IP)?
Intellectual Property (IP) refers to products, inventions, logos, artistic or literary works, and other identifiable items that have legal protection as an intangible asset. IP tends to fall into one of four categories: copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets.
Copyrighted material refers to creative work committed to some medium of expression, such as a novel, a photograph, a painting or a sculpture. Material is automatically copyrighted as soon as it is expressed, though you can also register it with a copyright office to establish a formal process to address copyright infringement.
Patents are legal protections for inventions. Patents are filed with a patent office and usually granted a fixed period of legal protection depending on the jurisdiction. Coverage for patents must be sought on a country-by-country basis, and usually, patent protection must be filed before the invention can be sold to the public.
Trademarks are words, phrases, logos, brands or other marks that distinguish your brand or product from competitors.
Trade secrets refer to confidential information, such as algorithms, recipes, customer or supplier lists and other essential information that creates value for your company. Trade secrets are not registered, as doing so would disclose the secret, however they can be protected by other legal mechanisms.
Why IP is important to your business
In 2018, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) spearheaded a new Intellectual Property Strategy to help businesses, creators, entrepreneurs and innovators understand, protect and access IP.
The first of its kind in Canada, the Intellectual Property Strategy was designed to support innovation and growth in Canada. As previously mentioned on the Froese Law blog, IP is a significant business asset, yet it remains underappreciated by Canadian businesses. As of 2020, only 10% of small- and medium-sized businesses have IP and only 9% have an IP strategy in place. Additionally, in 2019, IP represented just 1.9% of Canada’s GDP compared to 38.2% in the US; meanwhile, only 17.5% of all businesses own at least one type of IP in Canada and only 5% of businesses hold IP rights outside of Canada.
Protecting your IP can give your business a competitive advantage both domestically and internationally by setting your business apart from your competitors. IP also protects your business from competitors, thus reassuring investors and consumers about the quality of your product. Different types of IP can also be leveraged to increase and diversify revenue sources, such as through licensing agreements. Furthermore, IP is often a valuable core asset for many companies, especially innovative companies developing new products, ideas and technologies.
In the knowledge economy, owning your IP is one of the most valuable assets available to your business. To help you get started on your IP journey, please contact Froese Law to see if Communitech’s ElevateIP program is the right fit for you.
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