Gary Michelson Delivers Intellectual Property Keynote Speech

On March 5, 2020, the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business and the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding held the third annual Intellectual Property Awareness Summit (IPAS). The Summit attracts business leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, educators, students, lawyers, and policymakers who are interested in increasing IP understanding throughout the world. 

Dr. Michelson delivered the keynote address emphasizing the importance of intellectual property in the global economy as “innovation is key to the welfare of our country.” He also shared the inspiration behind The Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property (Michelson IP), including their first-of-a-kind IP textbook, The Intangible Advantage, and The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Intellectual Property, a course co-developed with the University of Southern California (USC). “Four years ago, to the best of our knowledge, there was no university or college teaching a full-credit, undergraduate course in intellectual property,” Dr. Michelson stated. “Today, there are over 300 universities and colleges, just in the United States alone, who have...incorporated that material into a course such as Entrepreneurship.”

Dr. Michelson also addressed the rampant gender and diversity opportunity gap in innovation, specifically the inventor-patentee opportunity gap. “Minorities are severely underrepresented as inventors…apart from the social injustice issues, our country can’t afford that. If we’re going to need to grow our economy out of the deficits we’re running now we need all the innovation we can get. What we’re getting is a small sliver of what we need.