Gutierrez: Innovation, IP Will Aid Economy
The United States and European Union must be united in their approach to fighting intellectual property crime, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told a transnational conference on IP enforcement on Monday. "We probably have the most at stake," he said at the event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It is a necessary partnership. Without it, I don't think we can fight [counterfeiting and piracy]." Gutierrez, who served in the Bush administration Cabinet from 2005 to 2009 and now works with the influential business group on trade policy, said solutions to many challenges in this arena "will come from the industries that rely on IP." "We have to innovate our way out of the crisis," he said. Gutierrez pointed to the fact that major U.S. brands were born during previous economic downturns. In the 1980s, Microsoft and Genentech came into being and during the Great Depression, companies like Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments emerged. "We have the ability to emerge successfully from this recession but it depends on our ability to protect IP," he stressed. "Now more than ever we can't allow for a world trading system to emerge where somehow intellectual property rights aren't protected." Read more about the conference in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
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