IP commercialisation is key to jobs, says US Commerce chief

US Commerce secretary Gary Locke has backed research and development (R&D) as a key tool for improving the US job market. Speaking on 7 January at a meeting of the Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST), Locke stressed that the US must regain the initiative in IP commercialisation if it is to harness the nation's workforce and compete with overseas players. While he criticised patent delays at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as a hindrance, Locke also outlined a range of potential solutions to boost the US R&D landscape.

'The issues being explored by PCAST are of singular importance for putting Americans back to work in the types of good-wage jobs that can support a family,' said Locke in his address to the council. These types of jobs, he added, 'have been disappearing for many, many years. We can talk all about the structural factors that have made these jobs disappear – be it global competition, productivity gains … or the recent folly of building economies on the ephemeral surface of a bubble'.

'But the deeper problem is an American economy that simply isn't innovating enough to create advanced new technology. In the past, America has depended, above all, on one thing to keep growing: a continuous flow of new technologies and new ideas entering the marketplace that sweeps away old ways of doing business and replaces them with new ones.'

Today, though, said Locke, 'America has a broken innovation ecosystem that does not efficiently create the right incentives, or allocate enough resources, to generate new ideas – or develop those ideas with focused research and turn them into businesses that can generate good-paying jobs.'

In Locke's view, America's loss of momentum in innovation has forced it to cede ground to Europe and Asia. 'Just a decade ago,' he said, 'the US had the unquestioned lead in the design and production of … semiconductors, batteries, robotics and consumer electronics. No more. Our trade balance in advanced technology products actually turned negative in 2002, [which] has shown little sign of abating'.

Locke pointed out that, in recent years, four in every 10 dollars of US corporate profit have come from the financial industry – a figure that he argues suggests an imbalance in the corporate landscape. In addition, he stated that America has created no net new jobs over the past decade, and that mid-level wages remain flat.

'We simply have got to develop more resources for research and development, especially at the Federal level,' he said. 'America was able to thrive through much of the last century because we had sprawling public and private sector research labs that were a constant source of new ideas.'

Locke said that PCAST will consider a range of methods that could put US innovation back on track. These include establishing an 'eBay for ideas' that will make all Federally generated technologies public; setting up specialist groups that will help universities to license their IP; bringing Federal research conducted across multiple government agencies under one, integrated roof; and factoring in the IP commercialisation records of universities when allocating Federal R&D grants.

PCAST will also work with the recently formed Department of Commerce group, the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to formulate further initiatives. This work is likely to begin next month, when the group will discuss ways of improving IP commercialisation.