The Justice Department recently charged a Chinese national with stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets from Google. He’s not the first Chinese spy to target American technologies — and he certainly won’t be the last.
China has been stealing U.S. intellectual property since the 1980s, imperiling our economy and national security. The FBI estimates that Chinese counterfeit goods, pirated software and theft of trade secrets may cost the United States a staggering $600 billion yearly. The White House should be scrambling to ensure we retain our technological edge. True to form, however, the administration is moving in the opposite direction — inviting China to displace the United States as the world’s leader in high-tech innovation. The consequences could devastate America’s economy, workers and national security.
The administration is finalizing a proposal allowing the federal government to nullify exclusive patent licensing agreements on products developed with the help of U.S. taxpayer dollars. The administration wants federal agencies to relicense patents on certain “unreasonably priced” products to other manufacturers, which could produce the products at a lower cost — at least in theory.
The White House has tried to advertise the reform to cut drug costs, but the proposal applies equally to any product that benefitted from federal research funding, including cutting-edge technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
That would be disastrous for U.S. national security. Quantum computing promises to become a gold-standard technology for codebreaking and repelling cyberattacks. Multiple national security experts agree that artificial intelligence will soon become a pivotal battlefield technology.
By weakening patent rights, Democrats empower our most prominent foe. Republicans can score political wins by calling out these policies for what they are — and reversing them if they take back the White House and Senate.
Strengthening patent rights is necessary for reinvigorating our economy.
Rampant inflation and open borders depress the earnings of American workers. By contrast, strong patents and other IP rights create high-paying jobs and grow the economy from the bottom up. Our IP-intensive industries generated $7.8 trillion in GDP in 2019. They also supported more than one in three U.S. jobs, which pay 60 percent more, on average, than those in other sectors. Strong patent protections are especially valuable for small businesses whose products are often targeted for infringement by larger competitors.
The rise of presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris opens further questions about the future of the American IP landscape. As vice president, Harris has enabled the administration’s misguided efforts to undermine vital patent licensing agreements and hand out cutting-edge American-made medical technologies to our competitors. As one insider stated, “there’s no air” between Biden and Harris on most policies. Harris has signaled that she will expand Biden’s agenda, and there’s no reason to think patent policy will be an exception.
IP protections are as old as America. Our Founders enshrined IP protections in the Constitution because they understood the inextricable link between strong private property rights and economic prosperity. Their foresight enabled men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to become household names — and the United States the world’s largest superpower.
GOP candidates running this fall may not headline their stump speeches with talk of IP rights. Nonetheless, the must support a robust pro-IP agenda. In doing so, they can help restore American ingenuity, thwart our adversaries and mend the economic wreckage of the last four years.
