Remarks as delivered
John A. Squires
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and 60th Director of the USPTO
University of Southern California Gould School of Law, Center for Transnational Law and Business (CTLB)
3rd Annual Washington D.C. Conference:
Protecting U.S. IP and Tech Leadership through International Trade Policy Tools
Washington D.C.
September 15, 2026
Thank you, Brian, for that kind introduction. And thank you for your service while working at the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to protect American intellectual property (IP) rights across the globe. It is absolutely essential, and to the great benefit of our nation, that we have legal experts like you stepping into the many roles within the federal government to tackle the growing challenges associated with the global enforcement of IP rights.
Thank you, also, for focusing so heavily on these issues as Executive Director of the Center for Transnational Law and Business at the USC (University of Southern California) Gould School of Law. It is great that the Center is training the next generation of legal talent to address an area of law—to my way of thinking—THE area that is growing in importance by the second.
I was just on the phone with Peter-Anthony Pappas, who tremendously wanted to be here but with his new role, he’s in Barcelona right now at a standard essential patents conference—hugely important for the U.S.—and we are so well represented. He sends all his very best.
It’s also just wonderful and a truly proud honor for me, not only to address you as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the 60th Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), but personally, as a father.
You see, my amazing son, Will, is a 2020 Trojan alumnus—founder, in fact, of the SC AutoSociety. And my daughter, Elizabeth, a Trustee Scholar and proud 2023 alumna.
So, my family bleeds cardinal and gold, knows full well that Traveler—not Tommy—is our mascot, and you might just see me in disguise with the Knights protecting Tommy, or Helenes protecting Hecuba—as we’ll no doubt keep that bell for another year. So, fight on!
Turning to today’s topic, we have entered a new era where intellectual property has become the most dominant and most important asset, not only of companies—but of nations themselves. We know for certain this is true for the United States of America.
Since the 1990s, U.S. companies have invested more in innovation and intangible IP assets than in physical equipment and machines. Intangible assets account for approximately 92% of total market value of the S&P 500 companies. That leaves only 8% tied to physical or tangible assets.
Our IP intensive industries accounted for 44% of U.S. GDP, or $11.4 trillion, in 2024.
That amount alone is almost equal to the combined GDPs of Germany ($4.7T), Japan ($4.2T), and France ($3.2T), or $12.1 trillion combined.
Our IP-intensive industries directly employ almost 50 million Americans, or 33% of total U.S. employment. When you add the workers who are employed indirectly by IP-intensive industries, it accounts for another 11% of the total U.S. workforce.
One of the most important yet underreported findings of the recent USPTO study into this subject was the fact that annual output per worker in IP-intensive industries was nearly $230,000.
That is a 60% higher rate of labor productivity for a worker than those in a non-IP intensive industry at $145,000.
Annual growth in our nation’s IP-intensive industries was 3.6% per year from 2019 to 2024. Again, far higher than the 2.3% annual growth rate achieved by the private sector GDP during the same period.
What makes all this growth and prosperity possible?
Two words: American ingenuity. American ingenuity harnessed… American ingenuity injected into the real economy… American ingenuity unleashed…
Born strong patents and born clear trademarks issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office—America’s Innovation Agency—are, as President Lincoln has said and is inscribed atop the Department of Commerce, that the patent system “add[s] the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” That, I submit to you, is America itself. The indispensable IP rights we put into circulation drives innovation, job creation, American competitiveness, and hard dollar investment.
Protected IP provides incentive for the development and commercialization of new ideas.
Our 8,774 patent examiners examine more than 600,000 patent applications every year.
And on the trademark side of our operations, new applications to protect brands and Name Image and Likeness are skyrocketing.
Through the third quarter of 2026, we’ve received 673,000 new trademark applications, an increase of 11% over the same period of 2025.
Again, every patent and trademark we issue represents a person or a company with a new product or brand that is looking for IP protection in the market.
It is our constitutional duty to provide them with that protection. Something the USPTO has been doing since 1790 and the dawn of our amazing country.
You see, our founders did something no other country had ever done—they placed the seeds of innovation right into the very heart of the American Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8.
For you, me, and every American, our Constitution secures for a limited time “to Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
And there it is. The word “right.”
It’s the only recitation of a “right” in the original document itself—boldly, remarkably, daringly, beautifully—and ultimately, singularly appearing in Article I amongst the Seven Articles of the “Constitution Proper.” So, it should come as no surprise—but it always astonishes—that the USPTO is, in fact, one of the oldest federal missions in our government.
Before there was a Department of Treasury.
Before there was a Department of State.
Before there were most of the institutions we now take for granted in the Executive Branch—there was an affirmative, indelible commitment for these brand-new United States, to innovation.
And it’s exploded into an amazing engine that has spectacularly spurred innovation and advanced society at a pace unmatched by any other country—or society in history—even to this day.
How well is it working?
Well, patents are numbered sequentially and returning to 1790, President George Washington signed the first U.S. patent, and come this time next summer, I will proudly present President Donald J. Trump for his signature, U.S. patent number 13 million.
Think about that. That’s 13 million new inventions, improvements, advances in our quality of life—since America was born—that the world would never have otherwise seen, but for America.
But American ingenuity doesn’t stop at our shores. And given the international focus of today’s forum, let me provide several remarkable examples.
While we proudly celebrated America’s 250th with an amazing display of American innovation at the Great American State Fair—if you missed it, it was wonderful—and we now have our Innovation Wall at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria. Come see it and come see me—I will proudly show it to you.
This year was also, remarkably, the 150th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone, U.S. patent number 174,465, granted in 1876.
Indeed, the USPTO is what it is today in no small part because of Mr. Bell’s world-changing inspiration and perspiration, resulting in the invention of the telephone.
His filing for and the grant of his U.S. patent transformed the world of telecommunications and sparked imaginations everywhere, and from then on in analog, digital, fiber, networking, signal processing, and wireless, and on, and on, and on.
Bell’s patent issued less than a month after he filed—now there’s a backlog reduction I can get my teeth into!! I’m working on it, trust me, I’m working on that.
And three days after that, on March 10, 1876, he made the first phone call from another room to his assistant. And with just nine words: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you,” Mr. Bell’s simple, vocal request made history as the first words ever spoken by humans over a wire.
No longer was distance a barrier to language and communication. Time was literally compressed. Who, then, could have fathomed what his modest, yet profound, oral request would evolve into today, including that ubiquitous wireless device that society could not function without: the smartphone, with over eight billion and counting of them having been produced so far.
But I mentioned the international connection and it’s this.
Alexander Graham Bell raced to the United States Patent Office to protect the fruits borne of his experiments. And armed with his patents, he had the full-faith and credit of the U.S. government backing his inventions, attracting investments, building the necessary infrastructure, and giving birth to the telecommunications industry as we now know it today.
Now, competition at the time of Bell’s invention was fierce, as many scientists were experimenting with voice signals over wire to improve upon the works of Samuel Morse.
One such scientist was Ericsson’s founder, Lars Magnus Ericsson, who just couldn’t break into the market as a second comer because of Bell’s patent. In 1885, he famously wrote a letter to his wife and business partner Hilda about his frustration. He said:
“However, the telephone area is not what we at home so eagerly expect, but mostly rather poorly, probably due to the fact that the patent conditions have made all competition impossible. Everything with the name Bell branches off the same tree and therefore all with common interests and purpose to control the telephone systems worldwide….”
Stunning. Ericsson’s letter from 140 years ago demonstrates not only the power of born strong patents, a fundamental administrative tenet to which I am committed at the USPTO, but even more so, the foresight of our nation’s founders. What would have become of the genius of Bell’s elegant invention had he not had the world’s sturdiest backing to protect it.
Sturdy as steel. Speaking of which, let me give you another remarkable vignette about Henry Bessemer. In the 1850s, Henry Bessemer, an English Inventor, discovered a radically better way to make steel—faster, cheaper, and at a scale the world had never seen.
He brought it to Britain’s ironmakers. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get any traction. The industry recoiled. A transformative invention was staring them right in the face, and the established order turned up its nose.
But then what happened? What happened was, his invention crossed the Atlantic and came to the land of the free and home of the brave.
In 1856, Bessemer received a United States patent. And America put that patented process to work. American engineers and entrepreneurs improved it, financed it, scaled it, and turned Bessemer steel into railroads, bridges, factories, and the infrastructure of a rising industrial economy. And Andrew Carnegie and J. Pierpont Morgan unleashed it to build a nation.
That is the awesome power and might of the American patent bargain rooted in our Constitution.
Now let me turn to another overseas effort and success, while on the topic of anniversaries—Brian, you’ll like this.
I just returned from my first IP5 group in Tokyo in June, where we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) alongside our colleagues and friends from the Japan Patent Office.
Our partnership over the past two decades has been amazing, starting 20 years ago as a pilot project between our two offices. And it has since expanded into a global framework involving dozens of participating offices and thousands of applications.
But the true success of the PPH is not measured only in time and numbers. It is measured in the real impact it has had for innovators, businesses, and economies worldwide.
The PPH helps applicants receive patent protection more efficiently across multiple jurisdictions, it reduces duplication of effort, and it allows our examiners to build upon high-quality work already completed by trusted partner offices.
You have to remember what innovation was like 20 years ago, it’s a hard thought experiment. Trust me, and let’s jump into jump into Doc Brown’s Delorean time machine and go back to the PPH future.
Arriving in 2006, if you went to the movies, Pixar’s “Cars” was just released. In the U.S., Dwayne Wade lifted the Miami Heat to their first NBA title. Around the world, Tiger Woods dominated golf with both an Open and a PGA championship.
And for Japan, well, Japan shocked the world by winning the first-ever World Baseball Classic in Puerto Rico, with Ichiro and Matsuzaka leading the charge. And as to inventions, what you wouldn’t see as hard as you looked, was an iPhone—that wasn’t released until 2007. Imagine that.
Today, back to the future, our history and partnership allow us to confidently embrace new opportunities to further advance emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, and all the breathtaking technologies of tomorrow, unimaginable then.
Now as to present day, proudly, the U.S. having this year’s G20 ministerial, hosted the G20 Innovation Ministerial meeting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
And it was a huge success and my hat’s off to Secretary Lutnick and Director Kratsios. The output of the Ministerial was the remarkable signing of the “Carolina Principles for Emerging Technologies” aimed at driving productivity, growth, strengthening national competitiveness, and improving the quality of life for everyone. In all of our meetings with our foreign counterparts we have stressed that strong IP laws and reciprocity are required to incentivize innovation everywhere. And look no further than our body of work, stemming back 250 years. What American ingenuity has meant to the world, why innovators have come here to realize their dreams and find their success.
That is our mantra.
At the 68th Assemblies of the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held in July, we insisted that the organization focus on the needs of companies and individuals who are managing increasingly complex patent portfolios.
We want the Patent Cooperation Treaty, signed by 159 contracting states, to work not only for the big guys, but for the small and medium-sized companies and individuals who are on the forefront of innovation.
We want WIPO to move past the outdated and archaic requirements that discourage trademark owners’ full use of the Madrid system in pursuing important branding rights across the globe.
We also were instrumental in kicking off WIPO’s “IP Growth Initiative,” focusing on using IP as a strategic “power tool” to drive innovation and economic growth. And not in 10 years, but now.
The world’s inventors, creators, and entrepreneurs cannot wait. The onrush of technology has never even heard of the word “wait.” Innovation only knows “now.”
In every global forum, and through our IP attachés located in all of the important global markets, we have insisted on ensuring that it is well understood that robust IP protection fosters innovation, incentivizes research and development, maintains competitive markets, and ensures fair and appropriate renumeration for our innovators and rights holders—reciprocation and respect.
And we have made the case in every international forum that IP systems, such as the one we have in America, are the strongest engines for growth ever created, both for economies and for personal accomplishment and success. We have also taken steps to broaden the base of IP rights holders in our own country.
We just opened an Emerging Technologies Office in San Francisco as part of the agency’s efforts to advance the use of AI and engage with the AI industry.
This office serves as a hub to convene our stakeholders involved in AI, enabling them to work with federal officials on how best to steer AI adoption for American dominance.
It will help U.S. companies gain a foothold in the federal marketplace and assist them in exporting their AI products and systems to other countries.
And we are focused on protecting the rights of individuals.
For the first time ever, we participated in the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh to work with student athletes and others about the legal right to their name, image, and likeness. And like I said, filings are up 11%.
This is a huge and growing area of IP protection, and we want to make sure people are aware of their potential.
Of course, challenges remain. For example, earlier this year, a federal court of appeals held that trademarks lack the full set of constitutional protections afforded physical property rights because trademarks are “intangible property.”
That case involves a trademark registered by the USPTO years ago in the name “Roberto Clemente,” one of Puerto Rico’s favorite sons who was a hall of fame baseball player and humanitarian who died in a plane crash bringing aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. I remember vividly when his plane went down.
The case is now on appeal at the Supreme Court, and it is certainly a matter of substantial interest to many people in my office, for we think not only that the intangible property rights issued by our office are deserving of full constitutional protections as property, but also that such rights are essential to a modern, 21st-century economy. Just ask the S&P 500.
Beyond personal branding such as the one memorializing Roberto Clemente, the legal protections afforded by IP laws do much more. They enable our nation’s gifted writers, musicians, and artists to break into regional and national markets, and for those who are truly gifted to reach much broader audiences around the globe.
It is the IP system that allows them to be compensated for their creativity and drive.
It is IP protection that is the critical element enabling them to own their own destiny.
It is the IP system that provides them with the ability to continue doing what they love most.
It is every hallmark and benefit that’s afforded America ingenuity, that’s built this great nation.
At the USPTO, we are all in. All in on advancing the strength, reach, and respect afforded with IP protection. All in for every American creator. All in for every American innovator. All in for every irrepressible “there has got to be a better way, I just know it” American spirit.
This is American ingenuity in full bloom—and our best days lie yet ahead.
Thank you.