I had the pleasure of attending yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for President Obama’s choice to be the nation’s first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), the very capable Victoria Espinel. The Copyright Alliance earlier this week sent a letter to Committee members and Senate leadership urging swift confirmation of Espinel (see here a copy of that letter to Chairman Leahy). At the close of the hearing, in which Ms. Espinel received nothing but praise and support for strong IP enforcement, Mr. Leahy said he hoped her nomination would move quickly through the committee and Senate floor. There are always obstacles to such things completely unrelated to nominees, but Mr. Leahy said he expressed his wish “with hope springing eternal.”

Ms. Espinel has “an incredible breadth of experience” for the job created in a bill he sponsored in the last Congress, the PRO-IP Act. She coordinated IP policy for the U.S. Trade Representative, has worked in the private sector on domestic and international IP, is extensively published in the IP space, and has been an academic.

The IPEC position is not a “czar,” despite common use of that word, and thus Ms. Espinel is not a “czarina.” IPEC is a statutory position answerable to Congress, and Ms. Espinel assured Mr. Leahy she would not only be willing to come and testify she felt very strongly that it was critical for her to do so. An official task of the IPEC is to provide an annual report to Congress on government-wide IP enforcement efforts, which she’ll gather though her coordination with all government agencies that touch on IP; it’s quite a list.

Her written testimony is here; let me quote a few passages:

It is difficult to overstate the importance of intellectual property to the United States today. A generation ago, more than two-thirds of the assets of U.S. publicly traded companies were comprised of tangible assets — factories, equipment, land. Today, more than two-thirds of the assets of U.S. publicly traded companies are intangible — these are the networks, the trade secrets, the management teams and the intellectual property that position American firms at the top of the supply chain…

Intellectual property rights will foster and protect the ingenuity of our artistic and creative communities. The creative industries of the United States entertain and inspire our citizens and those around the world.

Intellectual property rights will spur and protect U.S. investments in technologies to disseminate information, to address climate change and diversify our energy resources, to secure food for growing populations, to develop medicines for life-threatening diseases and to provide productive tools for individuals to lift themselves out of poverty…

Our intellectual property is America’s greatest comparative advantage. Better and smarter protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights will create more jobs; it will allow our industries to be more creative, ingenious and productive; it will reduce illegal profits pocketed by infringers; and it will ensure that American workers continue to lead the world.

Ms. Espinel told the Committee that there is no doubt that her mission squares completely with the Obama administration’s approach both on the importance of rights to IP owners and to an open Internet.

We at the Copyright Alliance applaud President Obama for his choice and look forward to her getting started as soon as possible.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 11:23 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, capitol hill, economy, international, property rights. 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.