IP/C/W/601/Add.3
17 October 2014
(14-5958)  Page: 1/6
Council for Trade-Related Aspects of 
Intellectual Property Rights  Original: English
 
 TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES: 
INFORMATION FROM MEMBERS 
CANADA 
Addendum 
The following communication, dated 7 October 2014, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Canada.  
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 1.  Pursuant to Article 67 of the Agreement on  Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 
Rights (TRIPS), the Council for TRIPS requests that developed country Members report on their 
technical and financial cooperation programmes in favour of developing and least developed country Members.  The present document provides an update on Canada's activities concerning 
technical and financial cooperation in the area of intellectual property in favour of developing and 
least developed country Members, covering the 2013-2014 period.  
2.  Canada has undertaken a number of technical cooperation activities at the multilateral, 
plurilateral and bilateral levels. At the multilateral level, Canada works in close collaboration with 
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Canada also provides continuing 
contributions to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Examples 
of the Canada's regional activities include the work undertaken in the context of the Asia-Pacific 
Economic Cooperation Intellectual Property Rights Expert's Group (APEC-IPEG), where Canada participates in the organization's biannual deliberations aimed at sharing information and best 
practices on intellectual property rights.   
3.  The following summary provides an update of  these activities, which are mainly administered 
by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD, incorporating the former Canadian International Development Agency)
1, the 
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Health Canada (HC) and the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police (RCMP). Other Canadian institutions, such as the Centre for Trade Policy and Law (CTPL) are also involved in international technical cooperation efforts.   
1  PROGRAMMES BY DEPARTMENT, AGENCY OR ORGANIZATION 
1.1  Canadian Intellectual Property office (CIPO)
2 
4.  CIPO's Workshop on "the Application of Mana gement Techniques in the Delivery of Intellectual 
Property Services" was held from June 9 to 13 June 2014. The Workshop is part of the WIPO 
                                               
1 On June 26 2013, the former Canadian Internatio nal Development Agency (CIDA) was merged with 
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trad e to create the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade 
and Development (DFATD). Certain refe rences to CIDA remain in this text and the two organization titles 
should be considered interchangeabl e for the purposes of this report. 
2 An overview of CIPO's international initiatives is provided at: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-
internetopic.nsf/eng/wr02324.html#apec.  IP/C/W/601/Add.3 
 
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  Professional Development Programme aimed at providing general and specialized training to senior 
IP executives in developing and least developed countries. The WIPO / CIPO Workshop was open to nationals from the following Regions: Latin America; Caribbean Region; Asia-Pacific; the Middle East; Africa; and Eastern Europe. Ten Senior Officials from Serbia, Romania, the Philippines, 
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh participated in the 
5-day Workshop. The Workshop included presentations on topics such as quality management, leveraging international relationships, understanding client needs, the challenges of designing a 
proper national intellectual property policy and the history of WIPO and its challenges. 
Furthermore, the Workshop also provided particip ants with insight into the Canadian Intellectual 
Property system and the management techniques used at CIPO, with a view to improving the capacity of intellectual property officials in de veloping countries. Both CIPO and WIPO bear all 
costs associated with this workshop. 
5.  CIPO, as a PCT International Authority also hosted a training activity for examiners from the 
Chilean Institute of Industrial Property. The trai ning took place in Santiago, Chile and Ottawa, 
Canada.  
6.  CIPO provides other activities in favor of developing and least developed country Members, 
including the following:  
• Performing state-of-the-art searches under the WIPO Patent Information Searches for 
developing countries;  
• Providing search and examination reports of patent applications under the WIPO 
Programme of International Cooperation in the Search and Examination of Inventions 
(ICSEI). CIPO performed  requests in 2014; and 
• Supplying free copies of Canadian patent documents for developing countries, upon 
request from WIPO.  
1.2  Department of Foreign Affair s, Trade and Development (Dfatd) 
7.  DFATD's development branch deals with develo pment assistance and aims to manage Canada's 
support and resources effectively and accountably to achieve meaningful, sustainable results as 
well as engage in policy development in Canada and internationally, enabling Canada's effort to 
realize its development objectives.  DFATD is responsible for various technical cooperation and financial cooperation programmes with developing countries which seek to provide support to legislation reform.  Such programmes include
3: 
• National Legislative Development project (Viet Nam) - The objective of the project 
is to strengthen the legal foundations for economic growth through an integrated programme of reforms to the Vietnamese legislative development process. It addresses 
several priorities of the Government of Viet Nam's legal reform agenda, including: the 
development of laws that are clear and more  easily implemented; improved review of 
legislation to ensure that it is consistent internally and with other legislation; and more 
effective public participation in the lawmaking process. The project addresses these 
concerns through an integrated work programme  addressing all points of the legislative 
development process, with attention to legi slation that supports economic growth and 
development.  
• Policy Implementation Assistance Proj ect (PIAP) - Phase III (Viet Nam) -  The 
goal of this project is to support polici es and reforms that promote transparent and 
accountable governance in Viet Nam. PIAP aims to improve the capacities of key 
Vietnamese government bodies within the National Assembly to guide and enable 
Viet Nam's ongoing socio-economic reform process.  
                                               
3 More information on DFATD's programmes are available through the DFATD project browser: 
"http://les.acdi-cida.gc.ca/servlet/JKMSearchController?desTemplateFile=cpoAdvSearchEn.htm&desClient 
Locale=enUS&AppID=cpoEn. " IP/C/W/601/Add.3 
 
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  • Canadian-Caribbean Cooperation Fund  (Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, 
Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaic a, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, 
Montserrat, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)  - The goal of the Canadian-Caribbean 
Cooperation Fund (CCF) is to advance public sector reform and to contribute to 
improving the environment for business development in the Caribbean.  The purposes are: (1) to strengthen public sector entities for the effective and efficient delivery of 
services and (2) to address bottlenecks to private sector development and business 
investment. Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) is the organization responsible for managing the CCF on behalf of DFATD. PWGSC has established a network 
of local fund coordinators, currently based in Guyana, Antigua, and Jamaica, who have 
been contracted to serve local needs, facilitate the application process and monitor local 
CCF initiatives. The CCF provides technical assistance in response to initiatives proposed by local government ministries, regional organizations, business associations or 
institutions such as universities. These initiatives aim primarily to increase local 
governments' capacities to formulate effective policies, to deliver efficient services, and to enhance the climate for business development. 
• Democratic Institutions Programme (Ethiopia)  - The Democratic Institutions 
Programme is a multi-donor initiative designed to support the development of a democratic, constitutional federalism in Ethiopia that is accountable and responsive to Ethiopian citizens. Its purpose is to deepen the democratization process by 
strengthening key state institutions including the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia, 
the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Ethiopian Institute of the Ombudsman, the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commissio n, the House of Peoples' Representatives 
and Regional State Councils, and the House of Federation. The Democratic Institutions 
Programme focuses on improving the quality of legislation, working systems, and procedures; reorganization for institutional efficiency and accountability; awareness 
raising and consensus building; public engagement, consultations, and reporting both to 
the public and to other state actors; and confli ct resolution. It is managed by the United 
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 
• Municipal Partners for Economic Development Project (Mali, Tanzania, 
Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and Viet Nam)  - The Federation of 
Canadian Municipalities' (FCM) project aims to enhance sustainable and equitable economic growth in selected developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Its 
specific purpose is to support local governments and local government associations 
(LGAs) in these countries to enable them to provide more effective services that advance sustainable and equitable local economic de velopment. The FCM co-manages the project 
with the seven national LGAs. Technical assistance is provided to LGAs to increase their 
capacity for policy development and political representation, so that national legislation, regulations and policies are supportive of an increased local government role in economic development. As well, technical assistance supports their efforts to establish 
training and knowledge-sharing programmes on sustainable and equitable economic 
development.  
8.  A major development with respect to Technical Assistance has been the creation of the 
Canadian Trade and Development Facility  comprised of a new Expert Deployment Mechanism, 
an alliance with the Trade Facilitation Office Canada and a commitment to consider the 
development of other sustainable economic growth projects, if required. The funding initiative will 
help developing countries negotiate, implement and benefit from trade and investment 
agreements with Canada and other countries. 
1.3  International developmen t research centre (IDRC) 
9.  Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), an arm's length crown 
corporation, supports research in developing countries to promote growth and development. It 
does so using a "grants-plus" approach that combines financial support to create new opportunities for research, engagement with recipients in the re search process, capacity-building, and brokering 
to strengthen research-to-policy linkages. IDRC works with researchers and innovators in the 
developing world, to develop their own ideas, communicate their results, and contribute to the IP/C/W/601/Add.3 
 
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  larger efforts to reduce poverty. The work of IDRC is part of Canada's international development 
assistance and is guided by the International Development Research Centre Act .   
 
Under the Strategic Framework 2010-2015, IDRC focuses on 4 thematic areas: agriculture and the 
environment, science and innovation; social and economic policy; and global health policy. 
Notably, the Information and Networks (I&N) programme, which falls under the science and innovation thematic area, supports research to en sure that the use of networked technologies has 
positive results, particularly for creative industries, governance, learning, and science. The 
Programme seeks to:  
• promote openness through information-sharing and collaborative processes;  
• protect the rights of citizens and consumers;  
• encourage the inclusion of marginalized communities in the benefits of networked 
societies;  and 
• broaden the field of research on in formation networks and development. 
10.  Recent outcomes of IDRC programmes include:  
• Research showing that African countries have not taken advantage of the provisions 
available in the TRIPS agreement such as pa tent pooling, and the research exemption, 
to access patented knowledge for innovation.   
• Research pointing to the value of collaborative platforms for open source drug 
development.
4  
11.  The following IDRC publications are examples of IDRC's support to research on technology use 
in developing countries:   
• Open Minds: Lessons from Nigeria on Intellectual Property, Innovation, and 
Development 5  
• Open Source Biotechnology Platforms for Global Health and Development: Two Case 
Studies 6    
• Connecting ICTs to Development7  
12.  Specifically, IDRC has a number of research programmes that aim to provide technical 
assistance to developed and least developed countries, including the following8: 
•  Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge (A2K) in the Marketplace 
(India)  - This project explores the interplay between intellectual property and the 
production and deployment of pervasive netw orked technologies and seeks to provide a 
supply-side picture of how intellectual property  plays a role in the proliferation of access 
technologies.  The resulting body of research is expected to shed light on how to better 
promote access to knowledge in Asia, with a view to influencing intellectual property 
laws and practices. 
• Open Business Models: New Compensati on Mechanisms for Creativity and 
Inclusion (focus on Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica)  This research aims to explore 
important new business models in the networked society, their implications for the rights 
                                               
4 See "Open Source Biotechnology Platforms for Global Health and Development: Two Case Studies" 
http://www.idrc.ca/en/resources/publications/openebooks/541-1/index.html  
5 Available at: http://www.idrc.ca/en/resources/publications/openebooks/541-1/index.html  
6 Available at: http://www.idrc.ca/en/resources/publications/openebooks/541-1/index.html  
7 Available at: http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/bitstream/10625/52228/1/IDL-52228.pdf  
8 A list of IDRC's programs can be accessed on the IDRC website : http://idris.idrc.ca/app/Search  IP/C/W/601/Add.3 
 
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  of consumers and creators, and their role in increasing inclusion and cultural diversity. It 
will also examine how the "click economy" (especially online ad-based models that use micropayments) and the "sharing economy" (peer-to-peer distribution of digital content) are transforming the developing regions of the world. 
• Ecology of Access to Educational Materi al in Developing World Universities 
(focus on Brazil, India, South Africa)  - This grant supports a multi-country inquiry 
into access to educational materials in developing country universities with a focus on 
Brazil, India and South Africa.  The findings will contribute to a wider inquiry into global 
market and policy dynamics, and to the emergi ng positive agenda on access, copyright 
and enforcement at the international level. 
• African Innovation Research on Inte llectual Property's Role in Open 
Development (South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria )  - This project aims to analyse 
the link between copyright, patents and trademarks and innovators' access to and production of knowledge-intensive products and services.  Case studies will focus on the 
energy sector, creative industries and agriculture in several African countries.  The 
project will foster capacity building on the pa rt of African IP researchers, uptake of the 
research results by policymakers, and peer networking with researchers in Asia and Latin 
America.  A network of African researchers will be coordinated by the Intellectual 
Property Law and Policy Research Unit, Univ ersity of Cape Town, South Africa.  Sub-
nodes of collaborating researchers will be located in Northern Africa (Egypt), West and Central Africa (Ghana or Nigeria) and East Africa (Kenya). 
• Global Administrative Law and Develo ping Countries (Brazil, Colombia) - The 
research network on global administrative law (GAL network) was organized by New York University Law School with IDRC support to improve the ability of developing 
country scholars, researchers, lawyers, officials, nongovernmental organizations and 
businesses to understand and influence important developments in global regulatory governance  This grant allowed, inter alia, the Los Andes University Law School Bogota 
(Colombia) to examine how transnational processes have shaped intellectual property 
norms governing access to medicine in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia.  
• Improving the Integration of Young Af rican Researchers into Research and 
Innovation Systems (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal) -  This project explores 
opportunities available to young researchers in  Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal) to 
work in private institutions and research centers, intellectual property services, norms and standards services, nongovernmental organizations and think tanks.  Contracts with 
associations and entrepreneurs will allow th em to define their needs and propose ways 
of inserting young researchers into the business world.  The goal is to turn young researchers into productive citizens, useful to their society, internationally competitive 
and aware of their contribution to  the development of the continent.  
1.4  Health Canada  13.  Health Canada continues to take opportunities at international venues to inform drug 
regulatory authorities from developing and least developed countries about Canada's Access to 
Medicines Regime (CAMR), which came into effect in May 2005.  CAMR was established to enable 
Canada to respond to the 30 August 2003 Decisi on of the WTO on the Implementation of 
Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIP S Agreement and Public Health and permit the 
export of lower-cost versions of patented ther apeutic products from Canada to developing and 
least developed countries with inadequate or no manufacturing capacity.   
1.5  Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) 
14.  Since 2007, the RCMP has contributed to International Intellectual Property Crime Training 
S e m i n a r s  h o s t e d  b y  I n t e r p o l  e a c h  y e a r .   T h e  s e m i n a r s  h a v e  b e e n  g i v e n  t o  p a r t i c i p a n t s  f r o m  developed and least developed countries, facilitating the exchange of best practices and techniques, and networking.   IP/C/W/601/Add.3 
 
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  15.  The RCMP and Health Canada are also me mbers of the Permanent Forum on International 
Pharmaceutical Crime (PFIPC).  The forum re-groups 15 developed countries and members from the private sector, allowing for the exchange of best practices, information on trends and enforcement initiatives and networking.   
16.   In May 2014, and for the seventh year in a row, the PFIPC and Interpol organized "Operation 
Pangea" (an International Week of Action) to ra ise public awareness of the risks of buying 
medicines on the internet.  113 developed, developing and least developed countries 
participated in Operation Pangea VII from 13 to 20 May 2014.  
2  OTHER CANADIAN INST ITUTIONS AND RESOURCES 
17.  Other Canadian institutions have also been involved in providing technical assistance to 
developing and least developed country Members. 
18.  For example, the Canada-based Centre for Trade Policy and Law (CTPL) is a Canadian 
institution that provides developing and transition economies with guidance and support to sustain them in the short-term and with the knowledge and tools to ensure their full participation in 
international trade agreements, including specific training on intellectual property law and policy 
issues.   
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