Program directory · Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
Intellectual Property
- Program code
- BNP11 (ISC)
- Core responsibility
- Companies, Investment and Growth
- In Departmental Plans
- 2018-19 – 2026-27 · New since an earlier plan
What it does
The Intellectual Property program is responsible for the administration of Canada’s intellectual property system, including the granting of patents and the registration of trademarks, copyrights and industrial designs, as well as ensuring that Canadian creators, innovators, businesses, and entrepreneurs gain a better understanding of intellectual property through intellectual property resources and tools that provide intellectual property awareness, education and advice. The program contributes to Canada's innovation and economic success by providing greater certainty in the marketplace through the timely delivery of quality intellectual property rights; raising awareness to encourage the effective use of intellectual property; fostering creativity and innovation through knowledge sharing; helping businesses compete globally by aligning Canada’s intellectual property system with those of our international counterparts; and promoting Canada's intellectual property interests globally. This program supports the departmental result “Businesses, investors and consumers are confident in the Canadian marketplace” under the Companies, Investment and Growth core responsibility.
Source: the department's Program Inventory, via GC InfoBase.
History and lineage
First appears in GC InfoBase's actual spending by program in 2018-19. The data does not record when a program was created; it may be older than its first appearance here, which is limited by the sources (program spending starts in 2010-11, Departmental Plans in 2018-19).
| Program | Relation | Years with data | Actual spending over those years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intellectual Property | This program | 2018-19 – 2028-29 | $176M |
No earlier or later program in the same department has a similar name.
Significant changes in scope and budget
Detected from the data: renames between plans, programs it appears to replace, merge with or split into (matched by name), year-over-year changes in spending of at least 25% and $5M, or in employees of at least 20% and 25 FTEs, linked budget measures, and results indicators added or dropped.
| Year | What changed | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | Spending $36.8M, against $21.8M in 2019-20 (+69%). | Actual spending (GC InfoBase) |
| 2022 | Budget 2022 measure “Building a World-Class Intellectual Property Regime”: $97M in total over its years (linked to this program by name, a best-effort match). | Budget 2022, PDF page 106 |
| 2022-23 | Spending $18.9M, against $30.2M in 2021-22 (−38%). | Actual spending (GC InfoBase) |
| 2023-24 | Spending $40.6M, against $18.9M in 2022-23 (+115%). | Actual spending (GC InfoBase) |
| 2024 | Budget 2024 measure “Accelerating Clean Tech Intellectual Property Creation and Retention”: $15M in total over its years (linked to this program by name, a best-effort match). | Budget 2024, PDF page 226 |
| 2024-25 | Spending $10.6M, against $40.6M in 2023-24 (−74%). | Actual spending (GC InfoBase) |
| 2025 | Budget 2025 measure “Protecting Canadian Intellectual Property”: $183M in total over its years (linked to this program by name, a best-effort match). | Budget 2025, PDF page 133 |
| 2026-27 | Planned spending -$2.1M, against $11.6M in 2025-26 (−118%). | Latest Departmental Plan |
| 2028-29 | Planned spending -$14.2M, against -$4.7M in 2027-28 (−199%). | Latest Departmental Plan |
Success criteria
The program's indicators from its department's Departmental Results Framework: the target set in each year's plan, and the result reported the following year. Source: GC InfoBase.
Historical: targets against results
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | ≤ 1 | 2022 | 1.4 Performance was affected by pandemic-related disruptions to CIPO operations, as paper and electronic applications still require manual processing. | Not met |
| 2022-23 | ≤ 1 | 2023 | 1.3 For electronic applications, the average turnaround time was 0.9 days. However, for paper applications, the average turnaround time was 14.9 days. Performance for paper applications was affected by pandemic-related disruptions to CIPO operations such as mandatory work from home directive, since paper applications require manual processing. | Not met |
| 2023-24 | ≤ 1 | 2024 | 2 16 Until March 2024, this process required human intervention and manual processing, including for electronic submissions making it impossible to meet the 1 day target. With the change to automated processing, processing will now be instantaneous for the vast majority of applications received online. | Not met |
| 2024-25 | ≤ 7 | 2025 | 0.4 The Turn around time (TAT) is less than a day due to the successful implementation of automation in the processing of a majority of online copyright applications. | Met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | ≤ 8 | 2022 | 16 Performance was affected by pandemic-related disruptions to CIPO operations and an increase in inventory due to higher than expected application volumes. | Not met |
| 2022-23 | ≤ 8 | 2023 | 15.6 Performance was affected by a growing inventory of applications due to higher-than-expected application volumes (between 2018 and 2021), in part as a result of Canada’s accession to the Hague Agreement. | Not met |
| 2023-24 | ≤ 8 | 2024 | 15.5 17 The Office is continuing to work through an accumulated backlog of applications which drove up the turnaround time. New capacity has been onboarded to address the backlog. | Not met |
| 2024-25 | ≤ 15 | 2025 | 13.5 | Met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | ≤ 18 | 2022 | 35.8 Performance was affected by pandemic-related disruptions to CIPO operations and a higher than anticipated volume of applications. | Not met |
| 2022-23 | ≤ 18 | 2023 | 33.8 Performance was affected by a growing inventory of applications due to higher than expected application volumes during the COVID-19 Pandemic. | Not met |
| 2023-24 | ≤ 18 | 2024 | 31.4 The Office is continuing to work through an accumulated backlog of applications which drove up the turnaround time. New capacity has been onboarded to address the backlog. | Not met |
| 2024-25 | ≤ 27 | 2025 | 34.9 The target of 27 months for trademark registration was not met primarily due to efforts to address the significant backlog of applications. In October 2023, TIDB hired 105 new examiners, followed by an additional 38 in April 2024. However, it typically takes approximately one year for newly hired examiners to reach full production capacity. Throughout 2024–25, the focus remained on processing old… | Not met |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | ≤ 34.6 | 2019 | 32 | Met |
| 2019-20 | ≤ 31.6 | 2020 | 31.1 | Met |
| 2021-22 | ≤ 30 | 2022 | 30.8 Performance was affected by pandemic-related disruptions to CIPO operations and an increase in inventory due to higher than expected application volumes. | Not met |
| 2022-23 | ≤ 30 | 2023 | 32.4 Performance was affected by an increase in inventory due to higher than expected volumes of request for examination. | Not met |
| 2023-24 | ≤ 36 | 2024 | 31.1 | Met |
| 2024-25 | ≤ 36 | 2025 | — The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) recently undertook a digital transformation initiative for its patent information systems. CIPO is currently working to validate the patent data reports with the new systems. Since this validation is ongoing, the data for the number of patent applications received is unavailable and should become available by the end of fiscal year 2025-2026. | No result reported |
Current: the 2026-27 plan's targets
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | ≤ 7 | 2027 | — | Planned |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | ≤ 12 | 2027 | — | Planned |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | ≤ 18 | 2027 | — | Planned |
Bars: result reported. Dashed line: target.
| Report year | Target | Due | Result | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | ≤ 36 | 2027 | — | Planned |
Future goals: targets due after 2026-27
No targets with a later due date.
Spending and employees: planned against actual
Spending
Show the numbers
| Fiscal year | Planned | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | $24.8M | $17.3M |
| 2019-20 | $75.7M | $21.8M |
| 2020-21 | $48.8M | $36.8M |
| 2021-22 | $35.7M | $30.2M |
| 2022-23 | $44.4M | $18.9M |
| 2023-24 | $15.4M | $40.6M |
| 2024-25 | $19.4M | $10.6M |
| 2025-26 | $11.6M | — |
| 2026-27 | -$2.1M | — |
| 2027-28 | -$4.7M* | — |
| 2028-29 | -$14.2M* | — |
Employees (FTEs)
Show the numbers
| Fiscal year | Planned | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 1,053 | 1,031 |
| 2019-20 | 1,094 | 1,070 |
| 2020-21 | 1,067 | 1,054 |
| 2021-22 | 1,067 | 1,055 |
| 2022-23 | 1,050 | 1,085 |
| 2023-24 | 1,156 | 1,189 |
| 2024-25 | 1,198 | 1,298 |
| 2025-26 | 1,295 | — |
| 2026-27 | 1,265 | — |
| 2027-28 | 1,265* | — |
| 2028-29 | 1,265* | — |
Planned spending, plan by plan
Each row is one year's Departmental Plan and its forecast for the next three fiscal years; read a column down to see how the forecast for one year changed. The last row is what was actually spent. Click an amount for its source. Biggest changes in federal spending plans
| Plan | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 plan | $24,763,447 | $25,414,805 | $23,075,382 | ||||||||
| 2019-20 plan | $75,711,189 | $26,917,839 | $10,805,840 | ||||||||
| 2020-21 plan | $48,812,602 | $40,393,793 | $35,516,161 | ||||||||
| 2021-22 plan | $35,705,122 | $31,630,154 | $21,973,354 | ||||||||
| 2022-23 plan | $44,384,560 | $26,129,217 | $28,779,891 | ||||||||
| 2023-24 plan | $15,383,988 | $3,398,108 | -$5,299,367 | ||||||||
| 2024-25 plan | $19,397,096 | -$4,406,549 | -$22,285,780 | ||||||||
| 2025-26 plan | $11,631,021 | -$3,694,361 | -$9,805,510 | ||||||||
| 2026-27 plan | -$2,121,078 | -$4,744,856 | -$14,178,017 | ||||||||
| Actual | $17,315,560 | $21,766,846 | $36,763,037 | $30,211,161 | $18,877,909 | $40,550,491 | $10,625,665 |
Actual spending is from Departmental Results Reports and the Public Accounts, as published in GC InfoBase. FTEs are full-time equivalents.
