IP Delivers on Both Sides of the Pond
Through the IP Delivers campaign, the GIPC seeks to educate folks about the ways in which IP delivers around the globe in both the likely and most unlikely of ways. With the flurry of trade agreements being negotiated between a variety of nations around the world, it is also important to consider how IP helps delivers jobs and innovation through trade and investment agreements.
Next week, the United States and the European Union will formally launch negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). An essential element of this agreement will be ensuring best-in-class standards for intellectual property protection. On both sides of the pond, an abundance of research illustrates the ways in which IP is critical to economic development. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce , IP-intensive industries account for $5 trillion dollars of U.S. GDP, 60% of U.S. exports, and 40 million American jobs. And these are good jobs, which pay 42% higher wages than jobs in other industries. Europe is currently working on a similar study in which will detail the importance of IP to the EU’s continued economic growth.
Just this Monday, Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) issued the 2013 Global Innovation Index . The Index ranks the innovation environment of 142 countries, which account for 99% of the world’s GDP. Four of the top five countries with the strongest innovation environments – Sweden, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and the United States – will soon be negotiating an unprecedented trade agreement to strengthen the trade and investment relationship between the U.S. and the EU.
One of the goals of TTIP agreement is to help create jobs and innovation opportunities, protect consumer safety, and promote access to goods both in the U.S. and the EU and around the world. It’s clear that the inclusion of IP provisions which will promote innovative environments will be critical to this goal. As the TTIP negotiations begin, we believe strengthening the rights of innovators and creators will not only be vital to this objective but also to the success of the agreement.
