The ability to generate knowledge-based intellectual property (IP) is essential to America's prosperity and leadership. Counterfeiting, piracy, and IP theft cost U.S. companies $250 billion annually and 750,000 American jobs.
Criminal networks are exploiting weaknesses in supply chains and enforcement in order to line their pockets by producing dangerous and defective products. Meanwhile, some governments, multilateral forums, and nongovernmental organizations are attacking the sanctity of IP and undercutting patents by promoting compulsory licenses, among other tactics.
The Chamber has already organized the business community and has worked successfully with governments and law enforcement agencies at home and around the world to protect IP. To expand these activities, we have created the Global Intellectual Property Center --an organization that could soon rival the size and scope of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform.
The Global Intellectual Property Center will aggressively promote the value and importance of IP; build broad domestic support for IP protection through grassroots education; and convince Congress to stiffen penalties, bolster enforcement resources, and improve interagency coordination.
Internationally, the center will join with like-minded allies to advance our cause in countries and global forums where IP is under attack. We will build regional collaboration and expand country-specific programs to generate stronger laws, tougher enforcement, and government recognition of the sanctity of patents.
American entrepreneurs invest a great deal of their time, money, and sweat into creating the next must-have technology. We all should encourage this type of investment, for we all benefit. In return, we must make sure that these innovators have the comfort of knowing that their ideas will be protected. And they need to know that they will be compensated fairly in the free market.
