This World Intellectual Property Day, protect America’s inventors
(This article originally appeared in The Hill)
I strive to teach my daughters that they can all invent the next best mousetrap. As a capitalist, I then start discussing ways they could make money off their invention. That might not be the parenting style for everyone — it sometimes isn’t even the type of parenting that my wife likes. But the reality is, the incentive of profiting from your invention is what drives the innovation and progress — and that starts with protecting Intellectual Property.
As we celebrate World Intellectual Property Day, I think that this is important to talk about because when we think about invention, we don’t often think about the money-side of the equation, but without those incentives most inventions would never have made it off of the shelf.
That is what makes World Intellectual Property Day so important; it is a day for the whole world to celebrate the protection of ideas. It is a day to celebrate not only innovation, but also the incentives that Intellectual Property and patent protection provides innovators to take risks — and what has driven the U.S. to lead the world in innovation. Invention is expensive, for the garage inventor the expense could mean maxing out their credit card, it could mean leveraging their home equity, and even asking friends and family to do the same.
To read the rest of Charles Sauer’s article, click here.