VP Biden Emphasizes Intellectual Property

The White House press office informs us that:

the Vice President will hold a roundtable discussion on this Administration’s commitment to enforcing laws against the piracy of intellectual property.  The Vice President will be joined by Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, FBI Director Robert Mueller, USSS Director Mark Sullivan, as well as CEOs from major media conglomerates, union representatives, legal experts and other government officials.  This White House meeting is the first of its kind, and will bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age.  

Here at NDN, we've long believed in the need to protect America's intellectual property, one of the key's to our economic strength in the modern idea-based economy. Dr. Rob Shapiro's paper, The Idea-Based Economy and Globalization: The Real Foundations of American Prosperity in the 21st Century, points out that:

In 1984, the market value of the physical assets of the top 150 U.S. public companies – their “book value” – accounted for 75 percent of the total value of their stocks. A firm was worth nearly what its plant, equipment and real estate could be sold for. By 2004, the book value of the top 150 U.S. corporations accounted for 36 percent of the total value of their shares. Nearly two-thirds of the value of large companies now comes from what they know and the ideas and relationships they own.

With that fact in mind, it is easy to see why ensuring that our IP is adequately protected is an important priority for policymakers.