National Alliance for Jobs & Innovation Releases 2015 Annual Member Survey Results

IP is Critical to U.S. Businesses and Under Thread - Trade Secrets Lead the List

News provided by

National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation (NAJI)

Jun 10, 2015, 10:26 ET

WASHINGTON, June 10, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation (NAJI) announced today the results from its 2015 Annual Member Survey, which revealed:

  • Half of NAJI members are experiencing theft of Intellectual Property (IP) by competitors 
  • Three out of four NAJI members rely on IP to compete and succeed

"This poll is further evidence that IP theft is a major concern for U.S. businesses who rely on trade secrets and other forms of IP to innovate and compete," said Rob McKenna, NAJI President and former Attorney General of Washington state. "In addition to utilizing existing legal and diplomatic tools to fight this problem, we need more efforts at the state and federal levels now that we know the severity."

HIGHLIGHTS

Importance of IP to U.S. manufacturers and businesses

  • Three quarters of respondents believe that IP is important to their business.
  • Over half of respondents are looking to increase sales abroad (58%).
  • 88% of companies looking to increase sales abroad cite IP as important to their business.

Trade Secrets top the list

  • 74% of IP-users cited trade secrets as important, followed by 67% for patents and 58% and 33% for trademarks and copyrights, respectively.
  • Strengthening protections for trade secrets, passing comprehensive tax reform, and expanding global opportunities through new trade agreements were the top three policies measures that respondents would like to see the Obama Administration and Congress pursue in 2015.

Prevalence of IP theft

  • Nearly half of respondents (45%) report that competitors are currently stealing their IP. Among them, 76% say IP is being stolen by competitors based overseas and 63% report IP is being stolen by competitors based in the U.S.
  • A majority (57%) of respondents believe that their competitors have or may have stolen their IP in the past.
  • IP theft was among the biggest business challenge for respondent, behind attracting and retaining quality workforce (46%), rising health care/insurance costs (42%), unfavorable business climate (e.g., taxes, regulations) (38%) and weaker domestic economy and product sales (34%).

Respondent profile

  • NAJI members (112) who completed this year's survey represented a cross-section of U.S. companies. 71% represented manufacturing, 10% represented high-tech, and 20% represented other industry sectors.
  • 21% represented companies with under 10 employees, 56% represented companies with between 10 and 100 employees, and 22% represented companies with over 100 employees.

Link to results: http://naji.org/2015-naji-annual-member-survey-highlights/

About NAJI:
The National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation (NAJI) is a nonpartisan organization of concerned manufacturers, associations, academics and other businesses. We work together to protect the tools and technologies that U.S. companies use to compete, innovate and succeed. NAJI members are committed to ending unfair competition by stopping the theft of data, trade secrets, and other IP. For more information, visit www.NAJI.org

SOURCE National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation (NAJI)