People

Smart & Biggar is Canada’s largest and highest ranked intellectual property firm. Our reputation and strength is a measure of the quality of our people, and we are proud to have the broadest and deepest bench for IP in Canada. With over 180 lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents, we offer legal expertise and technological knowledge across a wide range of industries and scientific and engineering disciplines, with leaders in every field.

Services

Today’s fast-paced innovation economy demands a higher level of expertise and attention to detail when it comes to IP. Our highly skilled team of lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents advise clients on a wide variety of strategic business, brand and technology matters leveraging their deep expertise in intellectual property to help them succeed with IP.

Industries

Across all industries, intellectual property is at the heart of innovation and is key to accelerating business value and growth. Developing a clear IP strategy and knowing how to tap and leverage IP to align with business goals can unlock competitive advantages and make the difference between industry leaders and followers.

Insights

At the forefront of IP in Canada, and actively involved as leaders in industry committees and associations, we stay up-to-date and proactively report on the latest developments in intellectual property law in Canada and around the world. Breaking IP news, changes in the law, important new decisions, and information on key IP issues are provided here through our IP publications and resources.

Careers

Many of the world's most commercially important innovators and most prominent brands trust Smart & Biggar to protect and enforce their IP and to provide them with strategic IP counsel. We have developed a reputation as a firm of talented lawyers and patent and trademark agents with integrity, business savvy and tremendous acumen. That’s why we look for the brightest people with combined talent and strengths in law, business, science and technology.

Who we are

Smart & Biggar is widely recognized as Canada’s leading firm for intellectual property, and with over 180 lawyers, patent agents and trademark agents in six offices, we are also Canada’s largest firm focused purely on IP and related specialty areas.

Rankings & Recognition

IAM Strategy 300 recognizes three Smart & Biggar practitioners as leading IP strategists for 2025

August 19, 2025

Congratulations to Daphne Lainson, France Leclaire and David St-Martin for their inclusion in the 2025 edition of IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists. Each year, IAM Strategy 300 recognizes those who innovatively create and action strategies which realize and amplify the worth of IP portfolios.

Daphne Lainson provides strategic advice and counselling to clients across the life cycle of a drug, including during pre-clinical and clinical development through to marketing and loss of exclusivity. She is dedicated to helping innovators secure comprehensive patent protection for their chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology-related inventions.

France Leclaire specializes in the life sciences sector with a focus on prosecution, client counselling, and patent portfolio growth and utilization. As a leader in her field, France regularly advises clients on biotechnology related innovations, turning their inventions into market value.

David St-Martin's practice includes drafting and prosecuting patent applications in the fields of material science, metallic powders manufacturing processes, pharmaceuticals, organic and inorganic chemistry, cosmetics, mining processes and products, green technologies, gas fermentation processes, nanotechnology and plasma torch related technologies.

View the full 2025 list of IAM Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists online.

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Who we are

IAM Strategy 300 recognizes three Smart & Biggar practitioners as leading IP strategists for 2025