WASHINGTON — In a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) pressed to strengthen the federal government’s efforts to enforce intellectual property rights, including their coordination across agencies as well as in the industry.
Senator Coons called protecting America’s intellectual property “one of the most important strategic challenges facing the United States.”
“If we are to sustain our competitiveness, if we are to continue to be the world’s innovation leader and a vibrant economy, we have to get this right.”
Senator Coons also pressed the Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice on the link between intellectual property theft and organized crime, asking what the Department was doing to fight it.
Copyright infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, in addition the billions of dollars in lost tax revenue for federal, state and local governments.
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