Forbes Opinion: The Unsung Job Creator: Intellectual Property, by Doug Schoen
This post originally appeared in Forbes on December 1, 2016.
If President-elect Donald Trump wants to protect and grow U.S. jobs, as he has promised to do, he can take at least one action that has broad popular support: protecting and strengthening intellectual property.
Polling shows that Americans can be receptive to government efforts to protect intellectual property, which comes in four forms—copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secrets—and the industries that rely heavily on it. Morning Consult Intelligence, for instance, asked registered voters if they would be more or less likely to support lower taxes on intellectual property if they learned that doing so would create jobs. The response? Seventy percent of liberals and 75% of conservatives either strongly supported or somewhat supported lowering taxes on intellectual property, given the knowledge that lowered taxes would result in more jobs.