Ambassador
Ambassador's Speech
REMARKS BY AMBASSADOR E. ANTHONY WAYNE AT THE AMCHAM ANNUAL IPR CONFERENCE
September 3, 2008
Marriott Plaza Hotel (Salón Dorado)
Thank you, Raul, and good morning. It's a pleasure to open AmCham's annual IP conference for the second year in a row.
Last year, I stressed how important the protection of Intellectual Property was to innovation and how impressed I was with the creativity and ingenuity of Argentines in general.
I believe this now more than ever, and for many reasons, such as the fact that Argentina has received as many Nobel Prizes in both Medicine and Chemistry as the rest of Latin American countries combined.
The Argentine Government's decision to create a new Ministry of Science and Technology at the end of 2007 recognizes the importance Argentina attaches to supporting and nurturing creativity and the innovation it inspires.
One of the first points we heard from Minister Lino Barañao in his new position was the importance of innovation to his Ministry’s mission.
I would also like to highlight the efforts in the past year by Argentines, including public officials, private sector representatives, and private citizens, to protect and so nurture creativity.
Further, I commend AmCham’s efforts for taking a leading role in this area, including via public-private cooperation, a worthy theme for today's event.
Working with the NGO, International Judicial Academy, you have arranged for Argentine judges to receive training, both in Argentina and the U.S., in the area of intellectual property.
The Embassy recently brought together several IPR supporters from the private sector to begin what we hope will be a productive coordination of positive public relations campaigns in support of IPR.
I commend the Argentine public officials at Customs and the INPI -- their leaders, Dra. Tirabassi of Aduana and Contador Aramburu of the INPI are with us today -- who have committed to uphold IP rights in Argentina.
I have also met with numerous Argentine fiscales, investigators and judges who seek to prevent and prosecute intellectual property crimes, and while their task is not easy, their work is commendable.
And in the private sector, I know many of you personally and noted your efforts to create opportunities for innovation and creativity, allowing them to flourish.
Perhaps you, more than anyone, know that your efforts require close collaboration with government actors, and for this reason I congratulate CAPIF, the Camara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas, which is successfully working with the Gendarmeria to achieve seizures of hundreds of thousands of pirated optical discs and other counterfeit materials in the market of La Salada.
I would like to mention that yesterday I met with the American singer Michael Bolton, after his performance. I told him about this conference and he said that he had given testimony in congressional hearings on intellectual property. Michael Bolton noted that copyright is very important not only for well known musicians but also for young people pursuing a career as musicians. He also expressed his support for this conference.
Innovation is the key to continued economic growth, and it’s in all of our interests that innovation be nourished and protected. Hard work and creativity, with appropriate protection, can contribute enormously to this country's competitiveness and future growth. To protect IPR is to create a vibrant future for Argentina's current and future creators and inventors.
