Top Ten Patent Applicants In Canada All Foreign Companies

“It’s embarrassing,” said one interested observer of the Canadian intellectual property scene.“We can’t even have ownership of our own market when it comes to intangible assets.” Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, a Chinese consumer electronics and smartphone maker, was first on the top ten list, filing 281 Canadian patents in 2019-20. The U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm was second. Other U.S. companies, plus Huawei Technologies, Alibaba Group (Chinese) and Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, round out the list. Policymakers have been warning Canadian companies for years that their lack of IP rights threatens to put the country at a severe disadvantage. Its dependency on foreign companies will affect the economy severely, they say. Canada has an excellent research sector, but it hasn’t developed a wide range of products or services that can be commercialized.