No one doubts that the U.S. is no longer a manufacturing giant.  We have lost most of those jobs.  So where does our wealth come from.   According a presentation by Ocean Tomo (the largest marketer of intellectual property) at the Utah State Bar IP Summit, the value of U.S. intellectual property is worth between $5-5.5 Trillion dollars.  That is greater than the gross domestic product of any other country.    This makes up roughly 75 percent of the valuation of the S & P 500.

One of the eventual goals to is create a market for trading intellectual property analogous to the commodity exchanges in Chicago.  One thing that is clear is that IP has become an asset separate from the operating entity where it is created.