IP Law Daily, AGENCY NEWS: Employment in IP-intensive recovered rapidly from pandemic dip, PTO report finds, (Mar 31, 2023)

By WK Editorial Staff

Recovery across all industry groups was rapid after the initial job losses, except for the performing and creative arts industries, which improved by summer 2021.

The USPTO Office of the Chief Economist has released an Economic Note looking at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment, with a special focus on those industries that most intensively use various forms of intellectual property (IP). The report found that companies in IP-intensive industries suffered a smaller employment loss following the initial COVID-19 shock than did those in non-IP-intensive industries. The report examined monthly employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics data from January 2020 through December 2021.

Overall, IP-intensive industries generally suffered fewer job losses. Due in part to the relatively high share of skilled workers employed in utility patent- and design patent-intensive industries, these groups experienced relatively fewer job losses throughout the first year of the pandemic, according to the report.

Trademark-intensive industries suffered the largest job losses, but still less than non-IP-intensive industries until June of 2020, when job losses were similar to those in the non-IP-intensive industries.

Employment in the copyright-intensive industries was slower to recover, reflecting a significantly slower initial recovery in the performing arts and creative industries in the first year of the pandemic. However, the performing and creative arts industries would see significant improvement in the spring and summer of 2021, helping to push a strong recovery in the copyright intensive industries through the rest of the year.

News: Copyright Covid19 IndustryNewsTrends Trademark Patent USPTO