Chamber Applauds Announcement of White House Intellectual Property Advisory Committees
Yesterday, President Obama issued an Executive Order establishing two White House Intellectual Property advisory committees, including the formation of an interagency Senior Intellectual Property Enforcement Advisory Committee. The senior advisory committee comprises cabinet level officials from State, Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Office of Management and Budget, as well as, the United States Trade Representative. Both committees will be chaired by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), Ms. Victoria Espinel. The formation of these advisory committees is not only a major step forward to expand federal government’s IP enforcement efforts, it is also a critical recognition by the Obama administration that we need to do more to better protect and promote IP.
The Chamber would like to applaud the efforts of Espinel and her stewardship of the IPEC office in not only ensuring the formation of an interagency advisory committee, as mandated by the PRO-IP Act, but also going a step further in the formation of a separate cabinet level advisory committee. The GIPC sees this action as a proactive measure in showing the White House’s elevated commitment to this pressing issue. The added level of cabinet level leadership will provide in assistance to the IPEC in ensuring the full implementation of Joint Strategic Plan that was released last June.
Recent research shows that the accelerating levels of global counterfeiting and piracy have robbed 2.5 million jobs from the G20 economies. With the Annual IP Enforcement report released earlier this week and the announcement of the first-ever White House IP Task Force, the Obama administration continues to take important steps to protect of American intellectual property.
Earlier this week, in an address here at the Chamber of Commerce, President Obama stated that as Americans, “we need to out-innovate, we need to out-educate, we need to out-build our competitors. We need an economy that’s based not on what we consume and borrow from other nations, but what we make and what we sell around the world.” We simply cannot achieve this innovation and future economic growth without strong IP rights. The White House’s creations of these advisory committees, coupled with recent Congressional actions to improve IP enforcement, are both positive steps in the fight against the scourge of counterfeiting and piracy.
