Nondisclosure Agreements, Trade Secrets, and Trademarks Considered Very Important to More U.S. Businesses than Were Patents or Copyrights in 2017

The Annual Business Survey ( ABS ) asked a sample of the 4.6 million for-profit U.S. businesses with at least one employee to report the importance of various types of intellectual property ( IP ) protection to their business in 2017. According to estimates from the ABS, 7 % of for-profit U.S. businesses viewed trade secrets as very important to their business in 2017, and another 9 % viewed them as somewhat important. Nondisclosure agreements were reported by the largest share of businesses ( 20 % ) as a type of IP protection that is viewed as very important ( 9 % ) or somewhat important ( 11 % ) to their business. The ABS is conducted by the Census Bureau in partnership with the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation.
Source: NSF - Statistics on U.S. Science and Engineering Resources - Category: Statistics Source Type: news