[B]efore the Constitution included the First Amendment or any other among the Bill of Rights, and even before it establishes a federal judiciary, its text empowers Congressional protection for the IP of inventors, authors and other creators.

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What single factor most accounts for American Exceptionalism?  

To employ a statistical term, why is it that the United States – which is neither the most populous or resource-rich nation on the planet – remains several standard deviations ahead of any other nation in human history in terms of innovation, influence and prosperity?   

Our free-market economic principles, while admirable and worthy of preservation, don’t explain it.  This may come as a surprise to many people, but today the U.S. actually trails even supposedly “socialist” nations like those in Scandinavia in terms of fidelity to free market principles.  

The answer is America’s enduring legacy of protecting intellectual property (IP) – patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret rights.  

Throughout our history, and continuing today, America leads the world in IP protection.  While we may no longer lead the world in free markets, we continue to lead the world on IP.  

And that’s precisely why it’s worth celebrating the fact that October has been designated “National Intellectual Property Month.”  

Our Founding Fathers explicitly protected IP because they understood something fundamental about human nature:  Americans would create more if they possess a secure property right to what they create.  

For that reason, the Founders didn’t simply leave IP rights to Congressional or judicial whim.  Instead, they expressly protected it in Article I of the Constitution itself, which empowers Congress “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  

Accordingly, before the Constitution included the First Amendment or any other among the Bill of Rights, and even before it establishes a federal judiciary, its text empowers Congressional protection for the IP of inventors, authors and other creators.  

The Founding Fathers’ insight and wisdom commenced a virtuous cycle that continues today, which is why we celebrate it this month.  

When someone conceives a new medicine, machine, song, semiconductor, software application, film, manufacturing process, company trademark or other invention, transforming that idea into something useful typically demands enormous amounts of money, time and risk.  

That’s where IP protection comes in.  It provides the indispensable security that if an invention or creation succeeds, competitors cannot simply appropriate it for their own profit without bearing those costs.  Or, as patent holder Abraham Lincoln observed, IP protections “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.”  

Those IP protections transform intangible ideas into transferable, licensable and investable assets.  In turn, that helps innovators obtain financing, encourages costly research and development, enables technology sharing and licensing and allows small inventors and creators to bargain on more equal terms with much larger competitors rather than simply surrender their creations to them.  

Over two centuries since the Constitution’s ratification, that constitutes a pillar of the U.S. economy.  

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), for example, America’s IP-intensive industries account for approximately $11.4 trillion in economic output – nearly 45% of private-sector U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).  Those industries also employ nearly 50 million Americans, and indirectly support another 16.2 million jobs.  

Just as importantly, those IP-industry jobs pay well – an average of $1,897 per week, which constitutes a 53% premium over non-IP jobs.  

Accordingly, America owes a great debt to IP.  

We possess less than 5% of the world’s population.  Across generations, however, the names most associated with transformative innovation worldwide disproportionately read like an American roll call: Edison, Bell, Ford, the Wright Brothers, Disney, Jobs, Musk and countless less-famous scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and creators whose innovations transformed everyday life.  

It’s also important to highlight that IP protections don’t merely reward famous corporations or wealthy inventors.  They enable the proverbial garage inventor and little guy.  

Multinational corporation may possess armies of lawyers, factories, capital, distribution networks and market power.  Independent inventors or small startups, in contrast, may possess only one extraordinary idea.  But strong and secure IP rights give those ideas legal weight – something that can be defended, licensed, financed and transformed into a business.  

For those reasons, in October we celebrate America’s inventors, authors, innovators, entrepreneurs and creators, and we remember the IP rights architecture that made and continue to make their achievements possible.  

Our Founding Fathers understood that innovation doesn’t arise amid lawless chaos or by government command.  Rather, innovation occurs when human creativity meets opportunity – and when people possess a secure right to the fruits of their own ingenuity.  

More than two centuries later, America remains the world’s foremost innovator and its strongest protector of intellectual property, and in turn its foremost cradle of innovation.  

For that we should be grateful and celebrate IP Month.