Whenever he leaves office, President Biden will leave our nation weaker on the world stage. One way to start to repair Biden’s dangerous legacy is by protecting intellectual property rights, which are the foundation of America's global competitiveness.
Our Founding Fathers enshrined IP rights in the Constitution to encourage innovation for the benefit of all. These rights — which include patents, copyrights, and trade secrets — reward determination and creativity by giving inventors exclusive permission to sell their inventions for a set period of time.
Thanks to our well-enforced patent system, the United States has been the most innovative country in the world over the past two centuries.
Just look around: America invented the telephone, the airplane, the lightbulb, the movie and the internet. And lest anyone think our glory days are behind us, American techno-visionaries are pioneering quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. These cutting-edge fields are key to both a strong economy and national security.
Yet even visionaries can only get so far without a strong patent system, and Democrats are attacking ours on every front. In recent years, they've endorsed an international agreement to waive vaccine patents, used spurious legal arguments to claim that the government has a right to seize companies' IP rights, and pushed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to limit patent applications.
As the 2024 election looms, we must champion policies that will restore and protect American innovation.
The case for strong IP rights begins with basic economics. When inventors, entrepreneurs, and companies know that if they develop a successful product, they'll be rewarded, they're encouraged to invest time and money. They're willing to take massive risks because that legally protected exclusivity period means they could earn a return.
Why put in all that effort if a competitor can immediately swoop in and make a knockoff? Rigorous IP laws solve this dilemma.
Beyond pure dollars and cents, IP rights are fundamentally aligned with core conservative values. At heart, IP rights are property rights — and property rights are the basis of any free and prosperous society.
Moreover, IP rights level the playing field between small entrepreneurs and corporations. With a smart idea and an enforceable patent, even a brand-new startup can compete against the giants and know its work can't be legally copied.
But perhaps the most pressing reason to fight for a strong IP system is national security. The economic and military rivalry between the United States and China only continues to intensify.
Technological superiority will determine which country prevails in the 21st century — and whether democracy or authoritarianism shapes the future of the world.
China is already engaged in a deliberate and aggressive attempt to steal American IP. In an announcement with allied intelligence chiefs last fall, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the effort a "dangerous" and "unprecedented threat" to innovation across the world.
China is using human intelligence, cyberattacks, and even seemingly normal financial transactions to filch inventions built with American know-how and hard work.
Weakening IP law and joining international agreements that waive IP rights – as Democrats want to do — would only help Beijing succeed.
That would put China ahead on emerging weapons technology, including drones and hypersonic missiles. And it would mean sacrificing economic power and countless jobs.
In short, a nation without strong IP rights is like a bank without locks on its vaults. If conservatives are serious about reversing Biden-era decline, the next Republican president and Congress should shore up our patent system on day one.
Sure, new Presidents face a lot of competing priorities. But no other policy can as effectively advance both the economy and national security at the same time.
Will America continue to be the birthplace of world-changing technologies? Or will we cede that ground to our adversaries, who see stealing IP as their path to victory? The answer will be up to our next leaders.
Drew Johnson is the Republican nominee for Congress in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District. He is a government watchdog columnist who has researched intellectual property policy issues at several leading free market think tanks. Read Drew Johnson's Reports — More Here.