About the Author: Robert D. Hormats serves as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.

Today, April 26, marks World Intellectual Property Day. Although this commemoration might go unnoticed by many, it’s worthwhile to imagine for a moment what life would be like without innovation or the inventions innovators produce. Thomas Hobbes famously quipped that humanity without social structure would be “solitary, poor, brutish, nasty and short.” The same can be said about humanity without innovation.

April 26 was chosen as the date for World Intellectual Property Day, because it coincides with the founding of the World Intellectual Property Organization, otherwise known as WIPO, in 1970. For this year’s celebration, WIPO has chosen to focus on “Creativity and the Next Generation.”

Inventors, scientists, artists, entertainers, and other creators devote substantial amounts of capital, imagination, persistence and sweat to their work. Intellectual… more »

About the Author: Robert D. Hormats serves as the Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment at the Department of State.

Today, we celebrate the contributions of scientists and innovators such as Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell. We recognize the writings of Jonathan Franzen, architectural designs of I. M. Pei, movies of Steven Spielberg, and many others like them whose works have changed the way we view our world and live our lives. Why today? Because April 26 marks World Intellectual Property Day, the annual celebration commemorating the formation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1970. 

This year’s theme — visionary innovators — recognizes the unique and valuable contributions made by gifted individuals all over the world. Without innovation, civilizations remain static. The economist Robert Solow was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1987 for showing that technological innovation was responsible for over 80 percent of economic growth in the United… more »