U.S. urged to ban foreign firms that steal intellectual property

The U.S. government should bar foreign companies that repeatedly steal or use stolen U.S. intellectual property from selling their products in the country, a new report recommended.

About US$300 billion worth of intellectual property is stolen from the U.S. every year, with 50 to 80 percent of the theft coming from China, according to the report, released Wednesday by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, a bipartisan group of former government officials and business representatives.