U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Releases Latest Bogus Study Pushing For More Draconian IP Enforcement

from the details-missing dept

The US Chamber of Commerce (which many people mistakenly think is a government organization -- it's not) has a long history of getting the facts wrong about intellectual property. The folks at the Chamber of Commerce have one basic mission, which is to protect the big businesses that fund it. And what better way to do that then to have the government help give them monopoly rights and then enforce those rights. The latest is that it has released a report which it falsely claims proves that stricter IP enforcement would boost the economy. But that's not what the report actually says. The Chamber of Commerce hired NPD Group to write this report, and you can read the results yourself (pdf). It's significantly weaker than even the most ridiculous studies we've seen in the past.

Basically, what the report does is talk about "IP-intensive industries," noting that they have created a lot of jobs. Then it picks twelve random "non-IP-intensive industries" and notes that they spend less on R&D and have lost jobs. That's it. But the conclusions it comes to are not supported by the facts. It takes several logical leaps as follows:

• Because an industry is considered "IP-intensive" it is only successful because of intellectual property laws. That's simply not true. In fact, a study by CCIA showed that exceptions to intellectual property law contribute more to the economy in those industries than the IP law itself. The problem here is falsely assuming that any kind of "IP-intensive industry" is only possible or only successful because of intellectual property. And yet, the actual research suggests that the vast majority of that economic activity, while perhaps in "IP-intensive" industries has little, if anything, to do with intellectual property law or its enforcement.
• Second, it assumes, but does nothing to support, the idea that stronger enforcement increases output in "IP-intensive" industries. In fact, actual research has shown the opposite to be true -- and that in cases where weaker enforcement occurs, output and economic activity increase.
• It assumes that because the industries it picked contributed more jobs to the economy, that's because of intellectual property law. Yet, there's little evidence to support this basic claim. In fact, history has shown that increasing IP strictness often decreases jobs by limiting competition.
• Finally, the report also assumes that IP-intensive industries are on the rise because of intellectual property law, not other massive shifts in the global market. Of course knowledge industries are growing in the US as agricultural and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere. But that's not because of intellectual property law. It's because of the natural progression of the economy. That the "non-IP intensive industries" it randomly chose to include (things like wood, textile, and paper) are on the decline is not due to intellectual property law at all. Claiming it does, as the report implies, is incredibly intellectually dishonest.

The report is a joke, based on a series of faulty assumptions. Tragically, the US Chamber of Commerce still gets attention, despite the fact that its claims pushing for stronger IP laws would do a lot more harm than good for most US business and innovation.

Filed Under: chamber of commerce, draconian, intellectual property, studies