Canadian Intellectual Property Office SME Roundtable 2025 Report Available for Review

Over the past year, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) hosted 10 regional roundtables where CIPO leadership met with businesses to better understand how IP is perceived, accessed and used by Canadian firms at different stages of growth and across various sectors and regions. You can access the report here, which is unique in offering a credible source of service-related insights and a clear picture of opportunities to better meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the IP ecosystem.

The roundtables provided insights into how SMEs view the value of intellectual property (IP), the challenges they face in securing and using it, and the support needed to succeed. Participants confirmed that IP is essential for financing, marketing, acquisitions, intelligence and litigation, but barriers including costs, timeliness, complexity and lack of IP knowledge, limit its benefits.

From the report findings the CIPO is rethinking their fee structure as part of a planned fee review exercise in 2026 and will examine ways to streamline fees in order to reduce complexity. The CIPO also plans to expand IP Central to offer deeper, more tailored pathways, high-quality tools and stronger connections to ecosystem partners, supporting businesses as their IP needs evolve. They aim to advance the IP Village as a national platform to strengthen collaboration, coordination and visibility across Canada's IP ecosystem and continuing engagement with SMEs and the business community to ensure our tools and resources remain grounded in evidence. Exploring new pathways for patent examination aligned with the Government of Canada’s red tape reduction agenda and collaborating with government partners to consider consultation to impact Canada’s IP system remain top of mind for the CIPO. 

If you need assistance with navigating IP for your business, reach out to Froese Law for a free 15 minute consultation.