Here’s a little quiz: What do virtually all the world’s greatest innovations of the last 150 years — and all the huge job-creating new industries they spawned — have in common?
Simple. They were all launched by American entrepreneurs relying on the protections of the U.S. patent system.
The telegraph, telephone, and electric power industries, the auto and aircraft industries, television, plastics, photocopiers, semiconductors, computers, software, biotech, the $4 trillion Internet e-commerce industry, smartphones, and now AI and autonomous vehicles — all are based on U.S. innovations incentivized and protected by the U.S. patent system.
Image: Undersecretary of Commerce and Director of the Patent Office Andrei Iancu.COURTESY GENE QUINN.
