Industry Leaders Call For More IP Enforcement
Billy Tauzin, the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday that his industry is the "soft underbelly" of the intellectual property infringement problem.
"We're the place where people go if they want to violate IP rights," he said at the business group's annual anti-counterfeiting summit. If the federal government does not stand up to infringers, "IP respect begins to die across the world," the former Louisiana Republican congressman said.
"The skinny is we're in trouble and it's getting worse," Tauzin continued, and PhRMA is pushing for "stronger, not weaker trade pacts" that include IP provisions. Stakeholders must "insist that the rights of Americans who pay for most of this R&D" are better protected, he said. "I can only tell you that it’s a challenge we all face."
Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, echoed Tauzin's call for bolstered IP policies, saying that in film and television, "we're barely holding our own" against bootleggers. He suggested that various players in the IP space share best practices, since "we all have different ways of dealing with piracy."
Michael Gallagher, the new chief of the Entertainment Software Association, added "we're the country of the First Amendment" ideas, and entertainment, and "the rest of the world looks up to us." It's critical that the U.S. government preserve that role, he said.
"If we are the beacon of IP protection to the world, we can't afford to have that beacon dimmed one bit," the former head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said.
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