The licensing payoff from US R&D

The United States spent 2.5 percent ($171 billion) of its Grass National Product performing research and development in 1996. Industry spent the lion's share of this amount to develop commercial products while the federal government and other non-profit organizations worked primarily in applied and basic research. For its efforts, U.S. industry: received $130 billion in royalty income in 1996. Approximately 50 percent of this came from licenses with affiliated entities, many of whom were based outside of the United States. Government data show that the United Stares licenses-out to foreigners, particularly the European Union, four times more technology than it licenses-in. Statistics also show that there is a strong positive correlation between research, innovation and U.S. economic prosperity.