Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy

This report by the Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of the U.S. Department of Commerce attempts to identify the first-order players that are growing IP in the U.S. economy and protecting their innovations through patents, trademarks, or copyrights. These IP-intensive industries support tens of millions of jobs and contribute several trillion dollars to our gross domestic product (GDP). This report not only estimates the contributions of these industries to our economy, but also gauges the ripple, or domino, effects they have on employment throughout the economy. They represent the leading edge of our economy that is built on the ingenuity of the American people and their future growth is increasingly dependent on effective protection of IP rights both here and abroad.