While intellectual property like copyrights and patents play a huge role in incentivizing both the future of creative expression and invention, they are parts of a much bigger but increasingly darker picture.
Sisvel head of content and former IAM editor-in-chief Joff Wild spoke for many of the thought-leaders present who are uneasy about the future of IP rights.
The U.S. has been the world’s innovation powerhouse for well over a century but policy developments at home and abroad are now putting that status in peril, wrote Wild in a LinkedIn post he plans to elaborate on.
Innovation Powerhouse Threatened
Wild was a moderator and breakout facilitator at the 2025 IP Awareness Summit held on Thursday by the nonprofit Center for Intellectual Property Understanding (CIPU) in conjunction with Dolby Labs at Dolby’s headquarters in San Francisco.
The former IAM editorial director observed “The event [IPAS 2025] was ostensibly about IP but it actually addressed issues far more fundamental than that…
“The US has been the world’s innovation powerhouse for well over a century but policy 
development at home and abroad are now putting that in peril.”
The opening keynote speaker was former USPTO Director and present Council for Innovation Promotion Chairman, Andrei Iancu, who addressed American Competition, Innovation and IP Rights.
Director Iancu’s comments strongly rebuked recent calls by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk, to “delete all IP law” for what Iancu said is “the purpose of devaluing American intellectual property, a political viewpoint that cedes economic and technological dominance to foreign rivals like China.”
Wild called Director Iancu’s candid talk “a tour de force presentation.” (I and many in the audience would have to agree. It was inspiring.)
“This is what needs to be made clear to DC policymakers,” said speaker Jonathan Taplin, Director Emeritus of USC’s Innovation Lab. “The four men that control AI and social media – Zuckerberg, Musk, Nadella and Bezos – have made it clear that copyright must be eliminated for their businesses to thrive.”
Taplin is a film producer (Scorsese, Kidman), author (Move Fast and Break Things) and former Bob Dylan tour manager.
“Weakening U.S. intellectual property laws for the purpose of devaluing American intellectual property [is] a political viewpoint that cedes economic and technological dominance to foreign rivals like China.”
As reported in IPWatchdog, Iancu noted that a fundamental point lost to most observers about IP policy is that “we are so steeped in innovation [and creative expression] that we have become blasé to the human endeavor.”
This cannot be emphasized enough. Director of the USC Technology, Entertainment and Media program, Jonathan Barnett, spoke about “the high cost of free,” specifically, the high cost of appearing to be free.
Inventions and creative expression are not there for the taking, no matter how convenient that may be for businesses or consumers.
On the frontline of IP monetization: Efrat Kasznik, Brian Hinman (from Houston), Louis Carbonneau and Nathan Shaffer.
The Danger of Devaluation
The excellent summary of the keyonte address in IPWatchdog by Steve Brachmann noted what may be Director Iancu’s most salient observation:
“While many supporting weaker IP laws in the U.S. do so out of misunderstanding the economic impact of IP, other such voices from large tech corporations and foreign countries advocate for weaker rights because they benefit from devaluing this important American asset.”
YouTube Access
For those unable to attend the Summit in person and IP CloseUp readers who did not take advantage of the livestream access, CIPU’s YouTube channel will receive uploads of the featured speakers and the five panels in the coming weeks. Look for the announcement on IP CloseUp and on my LinkedIn and CIPU’s LinkedIn. Follow us now if you have not.
Tap here for the IPAS agenda and speakers.
Transparency Matters: (l to r) Brad Watt’s of the Global Innovation Policy Center in Washington; Jon Taplin (from L.A.); Talal Shamoon, CEO of DRM leader Intertrust Technologies; and David Lowery, lead-singer, songwriter of Cracker, 25 albums.
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Image source: CIPU; understandingip.org
Featured Image: Adam Mossoff, Phil Hartstein, John Dubiansky, James Conley
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