U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

World Intellectual Property Day & Beyond: How the U.S. Government, Private Sector, and Academia Support International Outreach on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Wayne Paugh, Acting U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement; Brad Huther, Senior Advisor, Global Intellectual Property Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Timothy Trainer, Founder and President, Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
April 23, 2008
11:00 A.M.

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MR. PAUGH: Thank you. All right, to begin this morning about at least recognizing World IP Day. It's this Saturday, April the 26th, in recognition of IP in everyone's daily lives and looking at the protection and enforcement of intellectual property itself worldwide and to encourage respect for intellectual property rights worldwide. Those are the three main goals of World IP Day. And my role as Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordinator for the U.S. Government, I want to spend at least a few moments this morning looking at World IP Day from an enforcement perspective and then tying in protection and some of the training efforts in third countries.

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For overseas, however, the most important thing the United States has done is to set up the Intellectual Property Attach‚ Program. We currently have eight intellectual property attach‚s operating in the foreign commercial service in U.S. embassies across the globe. There are eight of them, three of them in China, two in Beijing, one in Guangzhou. We have a gentleman working in India, another in Egypt, another in Bangkok, another in Brazil and another one in Moscow. Part of their role is to raise public awareness for intellectual property in the respective markets and to support businesses that are operating in those markets.

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QUESTION: Sergio Dominquez at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This question is for Wayne. Why has the U.S. Government only decided to have eight IP attach‚s throughout the world? Why wouldn't they put another attach‚ in Paraguay or in Mexico? These are big markets. And especially in Paraguay where (inaudible) is the intermediary for these goods coming in from Asia, why wouldn't they put one in Paraguay or Mexico or, I don't know, in Canada for that matter?

MR. PAUGH: Thank you for that question. Actually, the intellectual property attach‚ program is officially termed as a pilot program. So these initial eight attach‚s are on the
-- I wouldn't say the experimental side, but it's certainly a pilot program. And they are finishing up on their -- a few of them are finishing up on their two to three year initial tours, and that is a consideration, as a matter of fact, to expand that program. We've received initial feedback from the respective geographic areas in which they're serving, very positive feedback that the attach‚ program has been a success.

That being said, though, there are significant costs that are involved in supporting and placing those attach‚s operating abroad. And so we have to assess at the end of the pilot program assess as a government expanding it. If we choose to expand it, where do we expand it? And then by how far do we expand it as far as the numbers?

So yes, that is a concern and a hopeful one, because we feel like the initial results have been extremely positive as far as the successes they've had especially one of the original attach‚s, a gentleman named Mark Cohen, who is operating out in our embassy in Beijing. Thank you.

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