This is a busy week in Washington on the health care front, but IP issues keep popping up as well, like yesterday’s hearing on the dangers of P2P to another hearing yesterday, the confirmation hearing for David Kappos, the IBM veteran up for U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director. He noted in his testimony that at IBM he was responsible not just for patents and trademarks but for trade secrets and copyrights. And Kappos echoed the Senate Judiciary Committee members sitting across from him in calling for rigorous IP protection, what he called of “paramount importance.” To quote his written testimony:

I am acutely mindful that innovation today is global and that IP policy is of paramount importance, not only in our country, but also in the EU and Japan, in China, India, Brazil and many other developing countries. I will use my international experience and my understanding of IP trends to help this Administration represent, advance, and protect the interests of American innovators in the global arena and to lead the world in developing strong, balanced, inclusive intellectual property systems that advance the well-being of all participants.

Yes, his main job if confirmed will be patents and trademarks. The U.S. Copyright Office, part of the legislative — not executive — branch, focuses on copyright. But on the international sphere, the two agencies work extremely closely together; they are in fact a model of not just intergovernmental but inter-branch relations.

So Kappos’ message on IP enforcement was central to the interests of all U.S. copyright owners.

Of interest was questioning by Senator Al Franken, the newest member of the committee and if I’m not mistaken the only non-lawyer among that august body. Franken, who knows a wee bit about the entertainment industry, brought up entertainment piracy, such as knockoff DVDs in China. Kappos rightly noted piracy impacts entertainment and other copyright industries (that includes publishing, another industry Franken has succeeded in), and Kappos expressed interest in “new capabilities” by the U.S. government that could lead to better coordination with overseas counterparts and better enforcement.

Kappos said one such capability was the USTR Special 301 process. I would think some of those developments could be progress on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and — eventually! — seeing the appointment of an IP Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President, as called for in the PRO-IP Act. My own opinion is that she (assuming the appointee is a she) would be most effective in a stand-alone position in EOP, but I could imagine a scenario where she worked out of the Office of Management and Budget; President Clinton had his Chief Privacy Officer (admittedly not a statutory position) operating there.

Kappos has a long history with IP; he understands how it drives innovation. Our Founding Fathers placed copyrights and patents together in the Progress Clause, and the economic benefits of both continue to be self-evident, to borrow a certain Founding Father phrase. (Or, as James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, for both their “utility could scarcely be questioned” and both “fully coincided with the public good.”)

Kappos is the latest in a long list of Obama Administration appointees — including U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and of course Vice President Joseph Biden — who have stated IP enforcement is a critical priority for America and its government.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 1:56 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, US Copyright Office, capitol hill, counterfeit, creators, founding fathers, international, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.