Remarks for Intellectual Property Enforcement Training
May 8, 2007

Good morning.  I applaud U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for convening this group of experts from all seven countries of the Central American isthmus – experts who are charged with enforcing intellectual property laws.

As you know, “Intellectual property rights” is a formal name for product accountability and the protection of human creativity. 

It’s the legal mechanism – through copyright, patents and trademark – that ensures that the products we buy are genuine, and that someone else doesn’t take credit for our ideas.

It’s not just the ideas of big U.S. film studios and multinational corporations that are being stolen, but also those of people down your street, in your stores, on your radio. 

Every day, Central American artists, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and retailers are seeing their livelihoods threatened, and their incentives to be creative and innovative slashed. 

It is not just about buying a cheap copy of a U.S. blockbuster movie on a street vendor’s table.   Sadly, nearly 7 percent of global trade – roughly $600 billion and growing - is in pirated or counterfeit products. 

Besides the losses creators suffer, those products divert badly-needed tax revenues from governments by moving funds through illegitimate channels. 

These diversions also fuel corruption and organized crime.  At the worst, some of these counterfeit products even injure or kill. 

Fake automobile brakes, airplane parts, infant formula - even medicines - are sold by unscrupulous manufacturers and dealers who profit from consumers’ lack of awareness.

Here are two examples: in Peru, the once-thriving legitimate recording industry is vanishing, with piracy levels now near 98 percent. 

Here in El Salvador, counterfeit drugs account for $40 million in losses to local manufacturers, and who knows what danger to consumers. 

In contrast, real benefits come from protecting intellectual property.  Companies across the Americas benefit from the intellectual property system. 

The globally-known Latin trademark for Café de Colombia, for example, protects a federation of thousands of domestic coffee growers and allow them to command premium prices. 

Information and communications technologies, safe medicines, and the other innovations that form the backbone of today’s economy are only possible because of intellectual property rights.