Making American Intellectual Property Great Again

Co-authored by Scott Powell, senior fellow at Discovery Institute and managing partner at RemingtonRand, and Robert Koch, former head of the intellectual property practice group at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in Washington, D.C.

A deteriorating intellectual property regime in the U.S. has been quietly unfolding over the last decade and has contributed to the declining standard of living for middle class Americans, the stagnant economy, and the outsourcing of high-tech manufacturing.

The Great Recession of 2008 technically ended in June 2009, but normal recovery never got traction in the next eight years of President Obama’s two terms.

Rearranging healthcare through Obamacare, reorganizing financial service regulations through Dodd-Frank, and the EPA war on fossil fuels — affecting some 38 percent of the economy — were thought to be the chief culprits hindering economic recovery. But it turns out that during this time frame, Supreme Court rulings and congressional legislation that affected the U.S. patent system and the protection of intellectual property also contributed to diminished innovation, fewer jobs created and lower economic growth.

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