Welcome to Motion - Discussing what matters, a video series covering hot topics across the country where our experienced lawyers provide timely legal analysis on issues relevant to Canadians.

This episode focuses on superclusters and features Anthony de Fazekas, our Canadian head of technology and innovation, IP partner and patent agent.

In these videos, we look at the supercluster concept and how these superclusters will support frictionless IP as well create and monetize data in Canada.

Transcript

How will superclusters support frictionless IP?

A lot has been said and written about the fact that Canada is really good at R&D and we’re not so good at commercialization and particularly turning our research into innovative products and services. And it's been made clear by I think many commentators that part of where we have an issue is that we don't have as strong of an IP culture generally in the country and then within some of our leading companies and perhaps competing companies in other jurisdictions might have.

How will superclusters reduce the friction involved in developing innovative products or services, whether from a commercial or IP point of view?

We want to create tools I think through the supercluster that will make it a lot easier for companies to conclude agreements, make deals happen, reducing the involvement of lawyers, reducing the time to negotiate those contracts. And there have been very well established proven out models that have done this. For example the Lambert tool kit is a very well-known framework and set of model agreements around collaborative development which we envisage leveraging

Question added: Will superclusters create or monetize data?

It's becoming increasingly clear that the data and enhancing the value of data using a number of technologies including AI and machine learning is something that is going to underlie each of the superclusters. So certainly everybody’s been talking about you know data being the new oil and it’s true that increasingly when we look at the total GDP of the world more and more of that can be objectively allocated to the aggregate value of data. And certainly we’re seeing companies that were not data companies before realizing very quickly the value of the underlying data that they have and moving very quickly in a very tactical way to deploy technologies that help them monetize that data extract the value of build up the value and then monetize.

Will superclusters be a recruiting pool for talent?

Recruitment of talent is such a huge priority for so many organizations. And part of what the supercluster I think will help the large companies do, is through the collaboration projects that will be facilitated through the supercluster, they will be able to demonstrate the benefits of working for the company. For a lot of key talent in the technology space and in the AI and machine learning space for example, a large company may not seem like a very attractive place to work in comparison for example to a scale up or a research institution. However you know once the key talent is exposed to the corporate culture, the collaborative nature of how the company works, the access to data that the companies is providing and that’s becoming a huge competitive factor where companies who can organize themselves to provide really unique pools of data are going to be magnets for talent.


About Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global law firm. We provide the world's preeminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service. We have 3800 lawyers and other legal staff based in more than 50 cities across Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Recognized for our industry focus, we are strong across all the key industry sectors: financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and life sciences and healthcare.

Wherever we are, we operate in accordance with our global business principles of quality, unity and integrity. We aim to provide the highest possible standard of legal service in each of our offices and to maintain that level of quality at every point of contact.

For more information about Norton Rose Fulbright, see nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.

Law around the world
nortonrosefulbright.com

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.