It is no secret that intellectual property protection enhances the U.S. economy. Patents and copyrights encourage inventors and authors to create new goods and services, in exchange for a government-granted monopoly that prevents others from exploiting the fruits of those labors. Trademarks likewise support the economy in many ways, ranging from protecting inventors’ exclusive “brand names” for goods and services, to creating new revenue streams as a result of co-branding, brand extension, trademark licensing and so on. What has not been available until now is a robust systematic study to correlate the industries where trademarks bring the biggest benefit to the U.S. economy.
President Obama has repeatedly recognized that investment in intellectual property is “absolutely essential to our future.” The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has a statutory obligation to provide the president, via the secretary of commerce, with advice on intellectual property protection, including trademark protection. To those ends, the United States has undertaken new efforts to measure the effect of trademark protection on the U.S. economy, on an industry-specific basis.
