IP Outreach Research > IP Use and Awareness

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Main Findings

40.1% of respondents think that Canada does an average job of encouraging new discoveries and inventions (21.4% think it does a poor/very poor job, and 31.6% think it does a good/very good job). The following policies are considered important for the future prosperity of Canada: “improving training” (by 82.7%), followed by “reducing red tape for businesses” (56%), “lowering business taxes” (52.9%), and “encouraging discoveries and inventions” (44.8%).

A clear majority of almost 80% supports the protection of the intellectual property (IP) rights of those that make discoveries or create unique products (just 6.5% oppose it). When asked why they have this opinion, the three most popular arguments are: “it is important to protect inventors’ ideas and products”, “inventors should get credit for their work”, and “we should encourage leaders/inventions/discoveries”. The most popular argument against IP protection is: “rightholders should not have control of a market/there should be information sharing”.

Support for the protection of different IP forms is high across the board: 74.5% of respondents support the protection of high tech products (7.2% oppose), 73.1% support the protection of new medicines (11.2% oppose), 68.2% support software copyrights (9.8% oppose), and 66.6% support music copyrights (11.5% oppose).

Support for the enforcement of IP rights (IPR) is also high across the board: 73.1% of respondents are in favour of strong enforcement of new medicines IPR (versus 9.3% favouring no/light enforcement), 70.5% are in favour of strong enforcement of high tech product IPR (versus 6.8% favouring no/light enforcement), 63.1% are in favour of strong enforcement of software copyrights (versus 11.3% favouring no/light enforcement), and 61.7% are in favour of strong enforcement of music copyrights (versus 16.2% favouring no/light enforcement).

[Date Added: Jan 20, 2009 ]