The Importance of Intellectual Property to the U.S. Economy; Inside Counsel, 10/27/16

Amanda Ciccatelli, Inside Counsel; The Importance of Intellectual Property to the U.S. Economy:

"...[T]he U.S. Department of Commerce recently released a report that finds that intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries support at least 45 million U.S. jobs (about 30 percent of all the jobs in the country) and contribute over $6 trillion to, or 38.2 percent of, U.S. GDP. While IP is used in every segment of the economy, there are 81 industries that use patent, copyright, or trademark protections extensively.

Mauricio Uribe, partner at Knobbe Martens and Chris Eusebi, principal at Harness Dickey, sat down with Inside Counsel to discuss what top IP-focused law firms are seeing in terms of growth in specific industries and types of IP.

“There may be a limited number of organizations whose main function is to buy, sell, or license IP and in such create an IP industry,” Uribe explained. “However, other than this specific niche, we wouldn’t consider IP as an industry in itself. Rather, it is easier to consider IP as a factor that impacts almost every industry in some manner.”

Over the past five years, IP has supported close to 30 million jobs, representing almost a one percent increase in the number of jobs since 2010.

“In an economy where every job is important, innovation and intellectual property protections represent some of the most significant protections for American jobs and Internal Rate of Return for corporate business units,” said Eusebi.

Total employment supported by the IP-intensive industries, which are the jobs in patent, trademark, copyright, or IP-intensive industries plus supply-chain jobs equals over 45 million jobs in the U.S. economy. “These jobs clearly represent exports to the world economy that represent the inflow of capital into the U.S.”

“Lately, trademark protection represents a large percentage of licensing revenue. For sole employment, which represents a large percentage of the U.S. work force, copyrights effect over 15 percent of the workforce. While the number of jobs protected due to patent protection appears to have been reduced since 2000, these high paying jobs, mostly in manufacturing, are as important as ever,” said Eusebi."