OwnershIP Program
Secure your intellectual property. Own your innovation.
Introduction
OwnershIP by Innovation Factory supports Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises in preparing to develop and protect their intellectual property. Funded by the National Research Council Industry Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), this program raises awareness of the tools and resources available for SMEs to successfully manage their IP.
Why IP matters to your business
Protecting your intellectual property is more important than ever. Knowing the steps you need to take to reduce risk and protect your innovation from the threats of a competitive landscape is essential. Having intellectual property can also make your business more attractive to investors.
Program Overview
Participants in the OwnershIP program will engage in workshops and seminars, complete on-demand training, and leverage accompanying resources and tools to navigate their way through the IP landscape. Participants can begin to visualize and build out their intellectual property objectives and map out the strategy by which they can achieve them.
Courses on Academy
Academy at Innovation Factory will host a variety of on-demand content to assist our participants on their intellectual property journey. Learners will gain access to more courses as they progress through each tier of the program.
Tier 1 - Courses
Tier 1 courses cover a variety of foundational topics in the world of Intellectual Property. Tier 1 content is available to all who register with Academy to help them begin to understand the journey to securing their innovation.
Tier 2 - Courses
Tier 2 courses build on the foundational topics covered in Tier 1 and take a deeper look at critical questions and topics. Tier 2 content is made available Participants in the OwnershIP program that have a registered ITA.
Registration
The OwnershIP program is currently accepting applications from innovative, tech-focused, Canadian SMEs. Companies applying to OwnershIP must be registered businesses in Canada. OwnershIP’s training regime is best suited for companies in the idea, early, and growth stages.
To be eligible to participate in OwnershIP, interested businesses must fill out the application form. If you are not currently an Innovation Factory client, you will also be required to fill out our client application intake form. There is no cost to becoming a client of Innovation Factory.
Tier 1
Tier One is designed to help founders learn how their current business model, technology, processes, or software creates intellectual property and what value this IP can mean. OwnershIP participants will be guided through a series of courses to learn about the various methods of safeguarding IP (such as patents), and the estimated costs of these services, and to begin identifying which instrument(s) their own organization will need to be fully IP protected.
Tier 2
Tier Two leverages the learnings from the earlier course material to challenge founders to begin their own self-discovery and environmental scan on how their intellectual property competes against existing filed IP. Intellectual property development is an iterative task and certain steps should be followed depending on which development level, or Technological Readiness Level (TRL) your business (and associated technology are currently, therefore, we explore intellectual property development across different stages of business growth and highlight key considerations founders and organizations should be aware of. Lastly, founders and organizations will explore geographic variances in relation to intellectual property, budgetary controls over IP, and associated risk factors related to IP.
Tier 3
Tier Three of OwnershIP will see the participants compiling their learnings from all their training to develop a gap analysis and work back schedule to achieve their intellectual property goals. The takeaway from the final Tier is to bring your developed intellectual property roadmap to legal partners and continue refinement of the strategy until such a point you can legally file IP protection and hold registered IP in Canada and other relevant geographies.
Questions?
Do you have questions regarding our program or whether it is right for your business? Send us a message and we can arrange a time to meet with you!