During the pandemic, the value to society of our IP-intensive industries has been demonstrated in spades.  The rapidity with which vaccines for a previously unknown virus were developed, tested, produced, and distributed, and the advent and dissemination of new communications and collaboration technologies which have enabled business to continue and people to see one another despite travel bans would have been impossible but for the investments in R&D and intellectual capital from our innovative industries. 

This report relies upon the most recent official data to measure and compare manufacturing industrial investment in innovation and assess its economic impact in the United States. Those data indicate that IP-intensive industries outperform their counterparts with respect to virtually all relevant economic metrics during 2008-19.