Three-Quarters of U.S. Businesses that Performed or Funded R & D Viewed Trade Secrets as Important in 2018

The Business Research and Development Survey ( BRDS ) , sponsored by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics ( NCSES ) within the National Science Foundation, provides data on R&D expenditures and R&D employees for for-profit, publicly or privately held, nonfarm business in the United States that performed or funded R&D either domestically or abroad. This InfoBrief examines how BRDS asked respondents to report the importance to their company of several types of intellectual property ( IP ) protection — including utility patents, design patents, trademarks, copyrights, mask works, and trade secrets. More companies viewed trade secrets as important than any other type of IP protection, with more than half of U.S. businesses that performed or funded R&D reporting trade secrets as very important to their company in 2018 and more than three-fourths reporting them as very or somewhat important.
Source: NSF - Statistics on U.S. Science and Engineering Resources - Category: Statistics Source Type: news