Chinese Software Counterfeiting Alone Costs U.S. 2.1 Million Jobs

From an op-ed by fmr. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Jon Huntsman, Jr., '12 Republican presidential contender, in yesterday's WaPo:

The scale is staggering. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, which we co-chaired, estimates that the total revenue loss to U.S. companies is comparable to the total value of U.S. exports to all of Asia. U.S. software manufacturers — a sector in which this country leads the world — lose tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually from counterfeiting just in China, where the problem is most rampant. The U.S. International Trade Commissionestimated in 2011 that if IP protection in China improved substantially, U.S. businesses could add 2.1 million jobs.

We agree with Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, that the ongoing theft of U.S. intellectual property is “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.”