JULY 2005 PRESS RELEASES
Top United States intellectual property rights scholars lead seminars in Colombo
Colombo, July 22, 2005: The United States Embassy is organizing a series of intellectual property rights seminars in Colombo from July 23-25, 2005. Counterfeit products – from CDs, DVDs, software and watches to electronic equipment, clothing, processed food, consumer products and auto parts – cost legitimate right holders billions of dollars annually.
The United States Government assigns high importance to the protection of Intellectual Property as reflected particularly by the recent (Strategy targeting Organized Piracy) STOP! initiative. STOP! aims to secure and enforce intellectual property, and to work with trading partners to build an international coalition to stop piracy and counterfeiting worldwide.
The seminars and roundtable will be conducted by Mr. William O. Hennessey, Professor of Law and Chair of Intellectual Property Graduate Programs at Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, and Mr. Timothy Browning, an Attorney-Advisor with the Office of Enforcement within the Department of External Affairs at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. L aw students, public and private sector groups, and journalists will attend the seminars in which Professor Hennessey and Mr. Browning will discuss the United States Government's perspective on several aspects of intellectual property rights protection.
The seminars will provide an important opportunity for the United States and Sri Lanka to share information on efforts to combat the theft of inventions, brands and ideas, to learn from each other's experiences, and to commit to enhance enforcement mechanisms to make Sri Lanka a model for South Asia in the protection of intellectual property rights.
T he U.S. Government welcomes recent initiatives by the Government of Sri Lanka to enforce Intellectual Property laws here and is hopeful that these efforts to boost intellectual property rights enforcement mechanisms would greatly benefit the economy of Sri Lanka and create an environment for investment by assuring businesses they can introduce their products into the market with confidence that their intellectual property will not be stolen. Increased legitimate imports and business will also allow for increased tax collection for the government.
Professor Hennessey has lectured on intellectual property law and strategy at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Harvard Business School and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is also the Director of the Intellectual Property Summer Institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He practiced Intellectual Property law from 1987 to 2001 representing a range of global companies, is an author of a text book and many academic articles on international patent trends, transfer of environmental technology, intellectual property protection and economic development, protection of traditional knowledge and folklore, international human rights, and intellectual property education.
Timothy Browning is currently an Attorney-Advisor for the United States Patent and Trademark Office, where he covers China, the Indian subcontinent, Korea, and Central Asia. As a legal consultant, he handled a wide range of intellectual property rights issues for companies producing tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs, auto parts, power tools, and other consumer goods and has published a number of articles on intellectual property protection in China.