USPTO: Intellectual property and the U.S. economy in 2024 by Richard Miller and Julian Kolev
Over the past few decades, U.S. companies have invested more heavily in intangible capital—such as research and development (R&D), software, data, and training— than in physical, tangible capital like equipment and machinery. Companies can use intellectual property (IP) rights, which include utility and design patents, trademarks, and copyrights, to protect their intangible capital investments as they develop and pursue commercial opportunities. While the economic impact of IP rights is difficult to measure directly, we can identify IP-intensive industries and assess their contributions to U.S. economic output and employment. While we cannot isolate IP’s impact from other factors, this exercise provides a useful benchmark to characterize the economic importance of industries that most heavily use IP protection and to compare the results to other countries.