Mikele Bicolli
Jan 30, 2022

How does the Intellectual Property Affect the U.S. Economy

Patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets are the main means in a society that grants ownership to inventions and ideas which are always huge benefits to businesses and their employees. But what are the ways it affects the economy, especially ours?
Well to begin with, IP provides powerful incentives for inventions and creations since it grants protection for the authors from infringement. Innovation then on its own, is directly responsible for economic growth and a boost in productivity for many fields. Another direct effect of IP is the creation of startups which are very important for the economy nowadays. There are many single inventions that just after getting patented, they make possible the creation of a new business and many of those continuously grow. New startups on their own mean more jobs created and this lowers the unemployment numbers. By the continuous reports released from the U.S. Commerce Department we get that IP related industries support more than 45 million U.S. jobs and also make 38.2 percent of U.S. GDP, equivalent to $6 trillion. This are the statistics only for industries that are IP intensive, as you probably can guess that almost all of the industries nowadays are related to intellectual property somehow. Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that the IP industry has created a good number of professions directly related to IP, as well as a whole market where now ideas are exchanged or sold. 
To conclude we can say that intellectual property has same effects as the physical property in economies and are a major booster of its key indicators