World Intellectual Property Day, 2018

Proclamation 9729 of April 26, 2018

World Intellectual Property Day, 2018

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

On World Intellectual Property Day, we not only
celebrate invention and innovation, but also we
recognize how integral intellectual property rights are
to our Nation's economic competitiveness. Intellectual
property rights support the arts, sciences, and
technology. They also create the framework for a
competitive market that leads to higher wages and more
jobs for everyone. The United States is committed to
protecting the intellectual property rights of our
companies and ensuring a level playing field in the
world economy for our Nation's creators, inventors, and
entrepreneurs.

Our country will no longer turn a blind eye to the
theft of American jobs, wealth, and intellectual
property through the unfair and unscrupulous economic
practices of some foreign actors. These practices are
harmful not only to our Nation's businesses and workers
but to our national security as well. Intellectual
property theft is estimated to cost our economy as much
as $600 billion a year. To protect our economic and
national security, I have directed Federal agencies to
aggressively respond to the theft of American
intellectual property. In combatting this intellectual
property theft, and in enforcing fair and reciprocal
trade policy, we will protect American jobs and promote
global innovation.

While we continue to demand the protection of
intellectual property rights abroad, my Administration
will also take steps to strengthen our patent system
here at home. A system that increases the reliability
and enforceability of patents will encourage even more
investment in creative and innovative industries,
leading to job and wealth creation for all Americans.
When the United States advances pro-growth policies of
this form, we set an example of protecting economic
competitiveness, promoting new engines of growth, and
prioritizing the expansion of innovative and creative
capacities overall.

This year's World Intellectual Property Day is
dedicated to celebrating all of the industrious and
brilliant women who have changed, and who continue to
change, the world with their inventions, innovations,
and other creative contributions to society. Our
Nation's economic strength and prosperity would not be
so without the over 75 million women in our country's
workforce, whose ingenuity, initiative, and hard work
have helped foster the growth and progress of America's
economy since our formation. Over the past decade, the
number of women-owned firms has grown five times faster
than the national average for all firms. American women
are assuming leading roles in health, business and
finance, the arts, and the STEM fields. We must protect
the intellectual property rights of these women
creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs in order to
promote further innovation for years to come.

A new era of American exceptionalism is dawning, in the
form of sustained intellectual property rights and
continued American entrepreneurship. The drive for
excellence, advancement, and innovation in the United
States has brought forth significant discoveries,
developed life-saving research, and improved the
quality of life for millions of Americans. On this
World Intellectual Property Day, we celebrate the
creative spirit and contributions of

American men and women, and we acknowledge the
necessity of maintaining intellectual property rights
for all those enterprising individuals who dare to
invent or create something new for the betterment of
all people.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States, do hereby proclaim April 26, 2018, as
World Intellectual Property Day. I encourage Americans
to observe this day with events and educational
programs that celebrate the benefits of intellectual
property to our economy and our country.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord two
thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
second.