Executive Summary
The Government of Canada has taken a number of measures to respond to the issues brought on by COVID-19. One such response is the Pandemic Response Challenge Program, initiated by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), with its goal to fast-track breakthroughs to support the fight against COVID-19. As patent data is often a useful starting point for analyzing the development of new technologies, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has collaborated with the NRC to present the patent landscape for pandemic mitigation technologies.
The purpose of this report is to highlight Canadian patented inventions between 1999 and 2018, with a particular focus on three research areas that align with NRC's Pandemic Response Challenge Program, namely, Therapeutics and Vaccine Development, Rapid Detection and Diagnosis, and Digital Health. The patent search strategy identified more than 11,000 patented inventions globally during this 20 year time period, of which approximately 2% of the patented inventions by institutions worldwide were attributed to Canadian institutions. Patented inventions in this area worldwide have grown annually by 17% on average, from 45 in 1999 to 874 in 2018.
Institutions based in the United States of America and China held the largest patent portfolios for pandemic mitigation technologies and together accounted for more than 50% of the total patented inventions considered for this analysis. Patented inventions by Chinese institutions grew significantly over the last decade and have recorded a higher than average annual growth rate. Canadian institutions ranked eighth globally for pandemic mitigation technologies in terms of number of patented inventions. With an annual growth rate of 8% between 2009 and 2018, Canadian institutions' growth is on par with institutions originating from leading economies such as Germany and Japan. Canadian institutions filed predominantly at CIPO (46%), followed by Intellectual Property India (13%) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (11%).
Furthermore, Canadian institutions were found to have a relatively high specialization in pandemic mitigation technologies. This expertise is spread out amongst numerous Canadian institutions, as more than 60% of these Canadian inventions were held by institutions that held less than five patented inventions. Within Canada, most of the innovation occurred within the Montreal and Vancouver Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA) followed closely by the Toronto CMA.
Upon further examination of the three research areas defined by the NRC's Pandemic Response Challenge Program, more than 50% of the pandemic mitigation patented inventions were related to Therapeutics and Vaccine Development. In addition, the bulk of the patent activity for this research area was evident in 2004 in institutions worldwide, in contrast to 2008 in Canadian institutions.
Although this report does not present patent activity resulting from the recent pandemic, as this data is not available yet, it provides a useful overview of the patenting behaviour during and following past outbreaks. The information presented in this report can be used to understand the state of innovation as it relates to technologies that could support in finding solutions to assist in protecting the population from this extremely contagious and deadly virus.