Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus

The US Commerce Department today released a comprehensive report, entitled “,” which finds that intellectual property (IP)-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion dollars to, or 34.8 percent of, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

The report has several important findings, including:

• IP-intensive industries contributed $5.06 trillion to the U.S. economy or 34.8 percent of GDP in 2010.
• 40 million jobs, or 27.7 percent of all jobs, were directly or indirectly attributable to the most IP-intensive industries in 2010.
• Between 2010 and 2011, the economic recovery led to a 1.6 percent increase in direct employment in IP-intensive industries, faster than the 1.0 percent growth in non-IP-intensive industries.
• Merchandise exports of IP-intensive industries totaled $775 billion in 2010, accounting for 60.7 percent of total U.S. merchandise exports.