The Institute
for Policy Innovation (IPI) celebrated the importance of a strong intellectual
property rights system at its 9th Annual World Intellectual
Property Day Forum on
April 24. IPI president Tom
Giovanetti gave opening remarks highlighting the property rights basis for IP
protection. He stated:
The
property right is the key that gives creators and innovators the ability to
surmount the obstacles they face in countries where economies are not
developed. It can be an engine of economic growth and economic development. Without
property rights, you can’t have markets; you can’t sell and you can’t buy. IP
is so important to the knowledge and information economy.
Panelists
discussed the enduring value of a property-rights-based concept of IP rights
amidst the various developments affecting IP-based industries today. Sandra
Aistars, CEO of the Copyright Alliance, and Geoffrey Manne, founder and
Executive Director of the International Center for Law and Economics, discussed
the potential implications of the Aereo litigation on content owners, service
providers, and video distributors alike.
Dana Colarulli,
Director of the Office of Governmental Affairs in the United States Patent and
Trademark Office [“USPTO”] provided updates on how the USPTO is reacting to and
keeping up with the new challenges posed by the digital age economy. Jonathan
Zuck, president of the Association of Competitive Technology, discussed the
roles of the U.S. government and ICANN in promoting the rights of trademark
owners during and after the transition to the new system of top-level domains
(TLD).
Grant Aldonas,
Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Joe
Damond, Senior VP for International Affairs at the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, Stevan Mitchell, Principal at Globalview Strategies, and
moderator Steve Pinkos of the American Continental Group discussed the need to
include IP terms in international trade agreements in order to promote
innovation and reward investment in IP-intensive industries around the world.
Tom Giovanetti noted
the remarkable impact of IP-intensive industries on the U.S. economy. Citing
facts contained in “Intellectual Property and the U.S.
Economy” [“IP Report”] released
by the Department of Commerce, Mr. Giovanetti explained that the entire U.S.
economy relies on some form of IP. Classic IP-based industries constitute the
largest U.S. export. IP-intensive industries accounted for 60.7% of total
merchandise exports and about 19% of service exports in 2010. While IP-intensive industries provided 18.8 percent of all jobs
in the economy in 2010, IP-intensive
industries employ over 55 million Americans today.
In addition to
providing many other data points that show the substantial value of IP-based
industries, the Commerce Department's IP Report stated that innovation is a
primary driver of U.S. economic growth and national competitiveness:
Innovation
protected by IP rights is key to creating new jobs and growing exports.
Innovation has a positive pervasive effect on the entire economy, and its
benefits flow both upstream and downstream to every sector of the U.S. economy.
Intellectual property is not just the final product of workers and
companies—every job in some way, produces, supplies, consumes, or relies on
innovation, creativity, and commercial distinctiveness. Protecting our ideas
and IP promotes innovative, open, and competitive markets, and helps ensure
that the U.S. private sector remains America’s innovation engine.
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