USPTO Report Shows IP's Tremendous Value to the U.S. Economy and Employment

Tuesday, April 26 was "World IP Day." The importance of copyrights to the U.S. economy and policy imperatives for better securing them were subjects of my Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "World IP Day 2022: Strengthen Copyright Protections for Creative Works." That Perspectives cited findings contained in a report by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office titled "Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Third Edition." Published in March 2022, USPTO's report focuses on so-called "IP-intensive" industries that primarily create or produce patents, trademarks, and copyrights. As described in my Perspectives:

[S]o-called "IP-intensive" industries … accounted for $7.8 trillion in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). In 2019, IP-intensive industries supported 62.5 million jobs, or 44% of U.S. employment. The report concluded that copyright-intensive industries accounted for about $1.3 trillion in GDP that year. Yet the benefits to the U.S. economy from copyrights are much greater than that, since the USPTO's definition of "copyright-intensive industries" excludes several lucrative industries, including book and music stores that distribute copyrighted goods. Notably, "[c]opyright-intensive industries outpaced other IP-intensive industries with respect to GDP growth since 2014—rising by 4.2%" And copyright-intensive industries supported 6.6 million jobs in 2019, up from 5.7 million five years before. 

To put the growth of copyright-intensive industries in context, the USPTO report explained that "GDP grew by 2.4% per annum between 2014 and 2019, which means that the share of total output accounted for by the copyright-intensive industries was the only share that grew signifcantly [sic] during this period." Additionally, the USPTO report found that copyright-intensive industries accounted for 7% of GDP in 2019 and 4% of U.S. employment. Furthermore, during the 2010s, "[j]ob growth was most rapid during this time in the copyright-intensive industries, adding nearly 30% more jobs and far outstripping the 18% gain made by the non-IP-intensive industries." 

These findings amplify the importance of having strong copyright protections in order to ensure that creative-minded individuals have the financial incentive and means to develop, invest in, and market their creative works. Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I wrote more about this in our book Modernizing Copyright Law for the Digital Age: Constitutional Foundations for Reform (Carolina Academic Press, 2020). 

The USPTO report also includes informative appendices. One appendix breaks down IP-intensive industries into 13 categories, including "Advertising and related services," "Computer systems design and related services," "Newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishers," Motion picture and video industries," and "Sound recording industries." Another appendix provides shares of private sector workers in IP-intensive industries as of 2019, categorized by state. 

The USPTO's report on IP-intensive industries is available here.

Copyright and AI

Both real-world advances and outright speculations about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have prompted scholars, policymakers, and others to ponder the implications of AI for copyright law and policy. The Copyright Office is hosting a symposium on "Copyright in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" on February 5 at the Library of Congress. And in 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requested public comments on the impact of AI on copyrights and other forms of intellectual property (IP). Among the comments filed in response to the USPTO's request, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) offered a common sense take on the durability of basic copyright principles and the importance of maintaining clear rules regarding ownership and liability for infringement.

We may have more to say on AI and copyright the future. However, Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I have made the case – in Perspectives from FSF Scholars papers published in September 2019 and here in January 2020 – that copyright infringement is a strict liability tort and that an online platform provider's use of an automatic process in causing an infringement does not shield such providers from liability.