Andrew Kovalcin is the senior director of stakeholder advocacy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC). He brings a diverse set of skills and experience from his work in managing coalitions, building strategic alliances, and designing and implementing issue advocacy campaigns. Kovalcin leads and manages one of GIPC’s top initiatives, which is to build national and state strategic alliances. His work includes identifying new and creative approaches to delivering intellectual property (IP) messages to various audiences around the country and ensuring that these messages echo back to Capitol Hill and the Administration. He has developed and implemented a comprehensive strategy to promote the importance of IP to jobs, the economy, and American competitiveness.

To the Presidential Candidates,

The first and second of the three presidential debates focused primarily on the state of the U.S. economy and the actions each candidate would take to improve the fiscal state and job market across the country. While both candidates presented valuable points, a critical factor in growing the economy – innovation – was missing from the conversation. As we progress forward in the 21^st century, ideas will be the common currency and it is important the United States and its leaders do everything possible to foster innovation.

Intellectual property safeguards are essential to protecting and enhancing the growth of ideas and IP-intensive companies. These businesses have a huge impact on our economy at both the state and national level, and every state is significantly impacted by the growth of intellectual property, as the subsequent spillover effects result in growth for other industries. In order to improve our economy and put people back to work we have to focus more on cultivating competitiveness by enhancing IP.

A recent study conducted by the US Chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) concluded that IP supports 55.7 million direct and indirect jobs across the United States. These companies contributed more than $5.8 trillion in output while supporting salaries 30.5 % higher than the national average. In total, IP intensive companies accounted for 74% of total U.S. exports in 2011. The GIPC is proud to work with like-minded organizations like the Arizona Technology Council to see that Arizona’s IP industry – supporting 752,388 jobs –  helps to put Arizonians back to work.

In the third presidential debate, we hope that both of you will address intellectual property as an invaluable method of driving our economy and holding America up as the global standard for innovation.

As President, we would urge you to foster the growth of innovation and the intellectual property marketplace and ensure that the IP industry is protected and encouraged to grow during these difficult economic times.

Let’s get America working again.

Andrew Kovalcin
Senior Director, Stakeholder Advocacy
US Chamber of Commerce Global Intellectual Property Center