Basic IP fundamentals: a recent survey among the IP community

 

On 30 November 2023, the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding (CIPU) published the findings of a survey on “Intellectual Property Principle – What the IP Community regards as important” (executive summary and slides). The survey was conducted by response:AI, an independent market research firm.

The survey

The survey was launched on 14 September 2023 and ended on 27 October 2023 with the goals of assessing the attitudes and beliefs towards IP among inventors, creators, IP lawyers, service providers, educators, IP advisors, investors and government or public policy officials, with a total of 213 respondents. The survey focused on providing an assessment on the perception of the value of IP rights (patents, copyrights and trademarks) also in comparison to other types of property rights and whether IP rights encourage sharing.

Key findings

The four principles identified by IPbasics.org were of help in understanding the survey: IP is property, IP encourage sharing, IP infringement has consequences, good IP behavior is learned.

The key findings of the survey are summarized as follows:

- Creators and IP professionals concur that an invention, name or work of creative expression can have value like any other property: 88% strongly agree with this statement while another 9% agree “somewhat”;

- 96% of those surveyed agree that copyrights, trademarks, patents and trade secrets provide value to both owners and society at large;

- 71% of respondents believe strongly that patents have a positive impact on innovation and 68% on the economy as a whole;

- 73% believe strongly in copyrights’ positive impact on creative expression and 66% on society as a whole;

Difference regarding business, impact;

- 100% of corporate respondents and consultants believe that IP infringement hurts business;

- The view that IP theft, deliberate or not, threatens jobs and compromises consumer safety is held by 98% of those with more than 30 years IP experience but only 85% or those will less than 10 years;

- There is less agreement across the community that IP protections encourage sharing: 71% agree with this statement while 13% have no opinion and 16% disagree;

- Attorneys are the most likely to disagree that IP protections encourage sharing (25%), followed by those in education and government (21%).

Comment

As a general view, we may find a confirmation on the IP community recognises the value of IP and a certain impact on innovation, while there is still disparity of views on IP infringement’s consequences and that IP protection encourages sharing. It is worth noting that only 36% of the respondents strongly agreed on the latter principle, with all this suggesting that the possibility of creating value by sharing IP still looks controversial.