Businesses Cheer Customs Bill IP Angle
NBC-Universal general counsel Rick Cotton, who chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, on Tuesday lauded legislation that would bolster intellectual property enforcement resources and tools for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bill that Chairman Max Baucus and ranking member Charles Grassley introduced in August. CongressDaily's AM Edition reported the bill could move through the committee before Thanksgiving.
Overall, CBP must ensure that U.S. innovation and creativity "is used to produce jobs here and is not stolen abroad -- endangering our economy, killing our jobs, threatening our citizens' health and safety, and nourishing organized crime," Cotton said in his written testimony. He went on to call IP theft "a stealth job killer" and warned that if the U.S. fails to take bold steps now, the country will be committing "slow-motion economic suicide."
The IP provisions of the broader CBP reauthorization bill would, among other things, establish an IP coordination center within ICE to prevent importation or exportation of pirated and counterfeit goods. The measure also strengthens CBP's targeting efforts to detect goods that violate IP rights and requires CBP to dedicate port personnel with primary responsibility for enforcing those rights. The bill requires strategic plan to decide where best to position those agents but in the meantime would assign at least one full time IP specialist at each of the top 10 ports.
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