Sadegh Raeisi thinks he has a way to shorten the long times that patients must wait for—and in—medical-imaging machines. Foqus, his Toronto-headquartered startup, uses quantum and machine-learning algorithms to hasten scans. “We are able to make MRI faster because of our technologies,” Raeisi says. “If we cannot protect that secret sauce, we don’t have a business.”

To safeguard that proprietary recipe, Foqus is enrolled in the first cohort of a program run by Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON), a new agency set up to help commercialize more of the innovations made in the province. 

Innovation economy executives and economists have long argued that not enough publicly funded research turns into revenue-generating products, and that when it does, too much of the profits flow to foreign firms. 

In April 2019, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (PC) government appointed an expert panel to study the problem of commercialization of discoveries and inventions produced at post-secondary institutions. In its February 2020 report, the group recommended the province require entrepreneurs and researchers receiving provincial funding to take an IP education program, and that the government set up an agency to offer “consistent, sophisticated legal and IP expertise, education and services.” The response is IPON, established via regulation in January 2022. 

The agency now has about 20 staff led by CEO Peter Cowan, a longtime IP consultant. Under its business plan, IPON will spend almost $14 million in the 2023–24 fiscal year, and $25.3 million in each of the subsequent two years. The beta test for its program focuses on startups in medtech, AI and automotive technology, or those backed by the Ontario Research Fund. 

The 40 companies in the first batch receive education that includes live workshops and sessions explaining real-world applications of IP, as well as online modules that entrepreneurs can take at their own pace. “Do our companies actually own what they’re inventing?” Cowan said in an interview with The Logic last month, noting that IPON will initially focus on helping increase the generation and protection of patents, trade secrets and other intangible assets.

The agency will also provide firms with market intelligence, mapping out the existing IP in the space in which they hope to make their mark, he said. Such “prior art” searches are a common step in filing for patents to protect an invention, and understanding what leverage competitors might hold.

Raeisi had begun developing an IP strategy before he and his co-founder spun Foqus out of the University of Waterloo. IPON’s course offered insight into IP strategy, and its staff gave practical advice, he said. The agency then helped connect Foqus with an IP law firm to help patent two ideas that all sides agreed should be protected. IPON is providing about $12,000 in funding toward the $25,000 in service fees. “As a startup company, our resources are really limited, and IP can be really expensive, especially early on,” Raeisi said.

IPON has similarly helped London, Ont.-based Tenomix find and pay for lawyers specializing in AI, who are advising the company on how to maintain its trade secrets and negotiate contracts with hospitals that properly assign data rights, said CEO Saumik Biswas. The Western University spinout combines algorithms, robotics and ultrasound imaging to automate the search for lymph nodes in colon cancer screening. “This technology can be used by all the pathology labs around the world,” Biswas said; IPON is helping Tenomix map out an accompanying global IP strategy.

The agency’s curriculum is not yet mandatory for provincial funding recipients, but Colleges and Universities Minister Jill Dunlop said it’s under consideration. For publicly subsidized research, she said, “​​we want to ensure that those ideas remain here and are fulfilled right through to commercialization [so that] Ontario taxpayers see the benefits.”

IPON is also working directly with post-secondary institutions. Last month, the agency announced $2 million split between 10 colleges and universities to pay for more technology-transfer experts who match discoveries with organizations that can commercialize it, as well as education, training and services. For example, Lakehead University, Laurentian University, Trent University and Nipissing University will share a new industry liaison focused on critical minerals and battery technology.

Cowan has also convened a working group of post-secondary administrators to figure out what commercialization help they need. “Some of them have sophisticated programs and may not need our supports,” he said, adding that IPON is “not here to replace the institutions.” Colleges tend to work directly with IP-holding industries to give students real-world experience, whereas universities may own the patents or other assets tied to the inventions generated there, Dunlop noted.

Provincial funding for Ontario’s colleges and universities is governed by strategic mandate agreements (SMAs) between Dunlop’s ministry and each institution. Starting in the 2020–21 academic year, the PC government tied some of the amounts schools receive to new performance metrics like graduates’ employment earnings and the amount of R&D money secured from industry. The current SMAs run through 2025, and Dunlop said funding could be tied to research commercialization in the next set.

The province will also need to figure out whether IPON’s programs are working. Standard industry metrics, like counts of IP assets generated, track activity. But the agency is devising measures to try to link those assets to real-world economic outcomes, said Cowan. IPON is collaborating on those yardsticks with the province’s regional innovation centres, the federal industry department and the Innovation Asset Collective, a non-profit Cowan co-founded that’s backed by $30 million from Ottawa.

For now, the agency and ministry are taking strong demand as an early indicator: more than 250 firms applied for IPON’s 40 initial slots. “There really is a buzz out there,” said Dunlop.

Correction: This article has been updated to correctly reflect IPON CEO Peter Cowan’s credentials.