Congressman Massie talks intellectual property protection at UK

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The University of Kentucky hosted a forum called, “Blueprints For Innovation: Intellectual Property in the Bluegrass State”.

The goal of the event was to inform the public about the importance of protecting intellectual property (IP) through patents.

Congressman Thomas Massie was invited to talk about IP because of his role on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

“I had been on the other side of that as an inventor filing for patents and I realized that my perspective was unique and I was able to get on the judiciary committee even though I’m not a lawyer they needed somebody who knew something about patents,” Massie said.

He was joined by former U.S. Patent Office Director Andrei Iancu as they explained why patents are important to national progress.

“It drives innovation, which in turn drives the economy and job growth and national so that’s why we wanted to come here and have public discourse,” Iancu said.

Industry leaders says patent law is important in helping researchers get funding for projects while remaining in exclusive control over their invention.

“So patents are really to incentivize the inventors to put in their time and effort into creating these new inventions and the investors to bring their capital their dollars to back these inventions up,” Iancu said.

Iancu says patents are specifically important to universities and this is one reason they hosted the event at the University of Kentucky.