Canada really does generate less than 1% of global patent activity: 24,184 applications in 2024 against roughly 3.7 million worldwide. But the count is the least interesting part. Canada’s share of international PCT filings has been cut roughly in half over twenty years, only 12.2% of applications at our own patent office come from Canadian residents, and the share of Canadian-invented US patents assigned to foreign owners rose from 18% in 1998 to 45% in 2017. Canada also pays about $27.8 billion a year to use foreign IP while earning $10.9 billion from its own. The problem isn’t that Canadians don’t invent. It’s that invention keeps getting separated from ownership, and ownership is where the compounding value lives.
Yesterday, I attended a Canadian Club Toronto lunch featuring Alison Nankivell, president and CEO of Export Development Canada.
The talk centered on EDC’s research into Canada’s declining economic complexity, our ability to create and export sophisticated products and services that embody specialized knowledge. One statistic stuck with me. Canada generates less than 1% of global patent activity.
That sent me down a rabbit hole.
Patents can sound abstract, a niche concern for researchers, lawyers and tech companies. But I’ve seen their value firsthand. When I worked at Certicom IP, the company’s elliptic-curve cryptography patents weren’t just legal documents sitting in a filing cabinet. They were central to the product, the licensing strategy, the whole culture of the place.
Certicom held hundreds of patents and patent applications covering elliptic-curve cryptography, an efficient method for securing digital communications. The technology got licensed into government, mobile and embedded-device applications. That portfolio helped attract competing bids and eventually led to the company’s sale to Research In Motion, now BlackBerry.
That experience taught me a patent can be a lot more than proof you invented something. Commercialized properly, it creates licensing revenue, market power, export opportunities and real enterprise value.
So how is Canada actually doing?
Canada really does produce less than 1% of global patent activity
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Canadian applicants filed 24,184 patent applications worldwide in 2024. Against roughly 3.7 million applications globally, that’s about 0.65%.
Canada ranked 13th by number of patent applications from its residents. Respectable for a country with about half a percent of the world’s population. Less impressive for a G7 economy that produces around 2% of global economic output.
The longer trend is worse.
In 2015, Canadian residents filed 23,751 patent applications worldwide. In 2024, they filed 24,184. That’s growth of under 2% over nine years, while global patent activity grew far faster.
The Patent Cooperation Treaty gives an even cleaner 20-year comparison. PCT applications are expensive and generally used when an applicant thinks an invention has value in multiple markets.
In 2004, Canadian applicants made up about 1.8% of international PCT applications. By 2024, Canada filed 2,399 PCT applications, about 0.9% of the total.
Canada didn’t collapse in absolute terms. We got overtaken by a much faster-growing global innovation economy. Our share of international patent activity got cut roughly in half.
Canada’s own patent office is overwhelmingly used by foreigners
Here’s another angle: who’s actually filing for patent protection inside Canada?
In 2024, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office received 35,374 patent applications. Only 4,304 came from Canadian residents.
So:
- 12.2% of patent applications filed in Canada were Canadian
- 87.8% came from foreign applicants
- US applicants alone filed 15,532 applications, more than three times the Canadian total
That doesn’t mean only 12% of patented technology used in Canada is Canadian. Filing a patent and actually using the technology commercially are two different things. But it does tell you foreign companies dominate the demand for patent protection in our own market.
Canadian applicants, meanwhile, look outward constantly. Of the 24,184 worldwide applications they filed in 2024, 19,880 went to foreign markets. More than 80% of Canadian-origin applications sought protection somewhere other than Canada.
Makes sense. The Canadian market is too small for most tech companies to build a patent strategy around alone. The real opportunities, and the real threats, are international.
The problem isn’t that Canadians fail to look abroad. It’s what happens to the ownership and value of their inventions once they get there.
Canadian invention doesn’t mean Canadian ownership
A patent can list Canadian inventors and still belong to a foreign company.
Research from the Institute for Research on Public Policy tracked US patents with at least one Canadian inventor. The share assigned to foreign entities at issuance rose from 18% in 1998 to 45% in 2017.
In raw numbers, Canadian-invented patents assigned abroad went from about 700 to 4,243 over that stretch. The reverse flow stayed tiny: Canadian entities acquired only around 500 foreign-invented patents in 2017.
A separate study cited by Statistics Canada found 58% of US patents granted to Canadian inventors in 2016 went to companies domiciled outside Canada.
Different methodologies, same direction. Canada produces valuable research and technical talent, but more and more of the resulting patent rights end up owned somewhere else.
That happens when a Canadian researcher works for a foreign multinational, when a startup gets acquired, when patents get sold off separately. Not every foreign acquisition is a loss. Founders, employees and investors can walk away with great returns, and the acquirer might bring exactly the capital needed to scale the technology globally.
Certicom itself ended up part of a larger Canadian tech company, which kept the value of its patents and expertise connected to a domestic enterprise.
But when foreign ownership becomes the dominant pattern across an entire economy, it compounds. Licensing revenue, strategic control, high-value corporate functions, the ability to use patents as collateral for growth, all of it drifts elsewhere.
Canada does the research, trains the inventors, funds the early development. Another country captures the long-term return.
Patents have value. Canada just doesn’t track it well.
There’s no reliable national number for what Canadian patents are actually worth, or how much they generate through sales.
Assignments get recorded, but sale prices are usually private. Patents also tend to get bundled into acquisitions alongside employees, software, customer relationships and trademarks, so isolating their value is hard.
The revenue numbers we do have lump patents in with other IP. Statistics Canada reported Canadian R&D-performing businesses generated $8.9 billion from IP in 2021, but nearly three-quarters of that came from software, not patents.
International payments offer another imperfect but telling measure. In 2024, Canada received about $10.9 billion in charges for use of its intellectual property, while paying roughly $27.8 billion abroad. That’s an IP payments deficit of about $16.8 billion.
Those figures blend patents with trademarks, copyrights, franchises, licensing deals and transactions between related multinationals, so this isn’t patent revenue in isolation. But the direction is hard to miss. Canada pays far more to use foreign IP than it earns from IP used abroad.
The data also show patents matter at the company level. Statistics Canada found patenting was associated with a 4.5-percentage-point jump in the odds a new Canadian business would still be operating seven years later, controlling for firm size, revenue, R&D and exporting.
Patents aren’t valuable just for existing. Plenty generate nothing. But a well-built patent portfolio can protect a market, help negotiate partnerships, secure financing, generate licensing revenue, or make a company a real acquisition target.
I saw that at Certicom. The patents mattered because they were tied to real expertise, working products, international standards and markets that actually needed secure communications.
The real problem is commercialization and scale
Canada’s patent numbers reflect the same pattern EDC has been pointing at.
We’re good at producing raw inputs, including intellectual ones. We generate research, technical talent, promising startups. We struggle to turn enough of that into large, globally competitive Canadian companies exporting sophisticated products and services.
More patent filings would help, but chasing the count can’t be the goal. A weak patent filed just to satisfy a funding requirement does nothing for productivity. A small portfolio protecting technology embedded in real global products can be worth far more.
The better questions:
- Who owns the patent?
- Is it tied to a real commercial product?
- Is the company exporting it?
- Is the patent generating licensing revenue or protecting market share?
- Can the business raise enough capital to actually scale?
- When the company gets acquired, where do the patents, the leadership, and future investment go?
Canada needs to support researchers and businesses on both sides of a patent filing. Better access to international IP expertise, commercialization funding, patient scale-up capital, and domestic customers sophisticated enough to actually buy Canadian technology.
Governments can use procurement more strategically here too. Being the first serious customer for a Canadian tech company might create more lasting value than covering its patent-filing fees ever could.
And Canada needs better measurement, period. We know how many patents get filed. We know almost nothing about their commercial value, sale prices, licensing revenue, or where they end up owned. If IP is as central to the modern economy as everyone claims, it deserves to be measured as seriously as factories, natural resources or real estate.
From invention to ownership
Alison Nankivell’s statistic checks out. Canada produces less than 1% of global patent activity.
But the more important story is what’s behind that number.
Canada’s international patent share has fallen. Canadian applicants account for only 12% of filings at our own patent office. A growing share of Canadian-invented patents ends up foreign-owned. And Canada pays far more for international IP than it earns from it.
The challenge isn’t just inventing more. It’s connecting Canadian invention to ownership, capital, commercialization, exports, and companies that can actually grow here.
A patent is a claim on the future value of an idea. Canada still produces plenty of good ideas. We need to get a lot better at keeping, and compounding, the value they create.
Sources and Qualifications
| Article claim | Source | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Alison Nankivell spoke at the Canadian Club lunch | Canadian Club Toronto event page | This establishes the event, but not the precise “less than 1%” quotation. That figure is my recollection of the talk. |
| Canadian applicants generated 24,184 patent applications worldwide in 2024 | WIPO, Canada Statistical Country Profile | “Canadian” means the applicant resided in Canada, not necessarily Canadian ownership or invention. |
| Canada represented approximately 0.65% of global patent filings | WIPO Canada profile and WIPO World Intellectual Property Indicators 2025 | Author calculation: 24,184 ÷ 3.7 million ≈ 0.65%. This substantiates “less than 1%.” |
| Canadian applications rose from 23,751 in 2015 to 24,184 in 2024 | WIPO Canada profile | Author calculation: growth of approximately 1.8% over nine years. |
| Only 12.2% of patent applications filed in Canada came from Canadian residents | WIPO Canada profile | Of 35,374 applications at the Canadian office, 4,304 were resident filings and 31,070 were non-resident filings. This is not literally the percentage of technology “used” in Canada. |
| Canadian applicants filed 19,880 applications abroad | WIPO Canada profile | This represented more than 82% of Canadian-origin applications in 2024. |
| Canada’s share of PCT applications declined from roughly 1.8% to 0.9% over 20 years | WIPO IP Statistics Data Center and WIPO explanation of its data | Author calculation from WIPO’s PCT series. The Data Center’s PCT data begin in 2004. Canada filed 2,399 PCT applications in 2024. |
| Foreign assignment of Canadian-invented U.S. patents increased from 18% in 1998 to 45% in 2017 | Gallini and Hollis, IRPP, To Sell or Scale Up | Applies to USPTO patents with at least one Canadian-resident inventor and assignment at issuance, not every Canadian patent worldwide. |
| The corresponding number rose from 700 to 4,243 patents | Gallini and Hollis, IRPP | The reverse flow, foreign-invented patents assigned to Canadian residents, rose from 197 to 500. |
| Another study found that 58% of U.S. patents granted to Canadian inventors in 2016 were assigned abroad | Statistics Canada, Intellectual property in the context of firms’ exit strategies | Statistics Canada is citing a 2017 Impact Centre study. The 58% and IRPP’s 45% use different methodologies, so they are not directly comparable. |
| Patenting was associated with a 4.5-percentage-point increase in seven-year firm survival | Statistics Canada, 2025 | Statistics Canada explicitly says the relationship is not proven to be causal. |
| Canadian R&D-performing businesses generated C$8.9 billion from IP in 2021 | Statistics Canada, Understanding Canada’s Innovation Paradox | This is revenue from intellectual property broadly, with software playing a major role. It is not the market value of Canadian patents. |
| Canada received about C$10.9 billion and paid C$27.8 billion in international IP charges | World Bank/IMF receipts series, payments series, and Bank of Canada exchange rates | These figures cover charges for the use of IP, including copyrights, trademarks, franchises and licensing, not patent sales alone. Author calculations after converting from current U.S. dollars. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Canada really produce less than 1% of global patent activity?
Yes. WIPO’s country profile shows Canadian applicants filed 24,184 patent applications worldwide in 2024, against roughly 3.7 million globally. That works out to about 0.65%. Canada ranked 13th by applications from its residents, which is respectable for a country holding about half a percent of the world’s population and less impressive for a G7 economy producing around 2% of global output.
Has Canada’s patent activity actually declined?
Not in absolute terms. Canadian residents filed 23,751 applications worldwide in 2015 and 24,184 in 2024, growth of under 2% over nine years. What fell is Canada’s share. International PCT filings, which applicants use when they think an invention has value in several markets, went from about 1.8% Canadian in 2004 to roughly 0.9% in 2024. Canada didn’t collapse. It got overtaken by a much faster-growing global innovation economy.
Why do foreign applicants dominate Canada’s patent office?
Of the 35,374 applications the Canadian Intellectual Property Office received in 2024, only 4,304 came from Canadian residents. US applicants alone filed 15,532, more than three times the Canadian total. Canadians aren’t ignoring patents; they’re filing elsewhere. Of their 24,184 worldwide applications, 19,880 went to foreign markets, because the Canadian market is too small to build a patent strategy around on its own.
What’s the difference between Canadian invention and Canadian ownership?
A patent can list Canadian inventors and still belong to a foreign company. IRPP research tracking US patents with at least one Canadian inventor found the share assigned to foreign entities at issuance rose from 18% in 1998 to 45% in 2017, from roughly 700 patents to 4,243. The reverse flow stayed tiny. A separate study cited by Statistics Canada put the 2016 figure at 58%. Different methodologies, same direction.
Is a foreign acquisition automatically bad for Canada?
No. Founders, employees and investors can walk away with great returns, and the acquirer may bring exactly the capital needed to scale the technology globally. The problem is what happens when foreign ownership becomes the dominant pattern across an entire economy. Licensing revenue, strategic control, high-value corporate functions and the ability to use patents as collateral all drift elsewhere, while Canada keeps paying for the research and the training.
How much are Canadian patents worth?
Nobody really knows, and that’s part of the problem. Assignments get recorded but sale prices stay private, and patents usually get bundled into acquisitions alongside staff, software and customer relationships. The revenue figures that exist lump patents together with other IP: Statistics Canada reported $8.9 billion from IP among R&D-performing businesses in 2021, nearly three-quarters of it from software. Canada measures how many patents get filed and almost nothing about what they earn.
What is Canada’s IP payments deficit?
In 2024 Canada received about $10.9 billion in charges for use of its intellectual property and paid roughly $27.8 billion abroad, a gap of about $16.8 billion. Those figures blend patents with trademarks, copyrights, franchises, licensing deals and transactions between related multinationals, so it isn’t patent revenue in isolation. The direction is still hard to miss.
Would filing more patents fix this?
Not on its own. A weak patent filed to satisfy a funding requirement does nothing for productivity, while a small portfolio protecting technology embedded in real global products can be worth far more. The questions that matter are who owns the patent, whether it’s tied to a commercial product, whether the company is exporting, whether it generates licensing revenue, whether the business can raise enough capital to scale, and where the patents and leadership go when it gets acquired.
