Intellectual Property: An Economic Driver in Washington State

Posted Saturday, June 02, 2012.

I hope that you noticed the transition of this blog from Wordpress to the new HalsneLaw.com website. Let’s kick off the year with an eye-opener about the value of IP, as collected from an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the Global Intellectual Property Center. Some of their statistics appear below.

Intellectual Property (IP), which refers to everything from inventions to the creative arts, drives innovation and improves our lives—generating life saving devices and medicines, discovering new energy and climate-saving technologies, finding novel ways to create and deliver information, and generating consumer goods of all types. IP-intensive industries directly and indirectly employ 55 million Americans, and many of them are in higher-paying jobs and faster-growing fields.• America’s IP is worth $5.8 trillion, more than the nominal GDP of any other country in the world.• IP accounts for 74% of all U.S. exports- which amounts to nearly $1 trillion.• America is a net exporter of IP, contributing $37 billion to our 2006 trade balance.

Washington state relies heavily on IP in its $64.6 billion annual exports. IP supports almost half of the state’s 2.5 million private sector jobs. And IP-intensive companies generate 90% more economic output per employee than the average.

These statistics indicate that the value of IP to Washington businesses is substantial. It is well worthwhile to consider how to protect the IP in yours.