Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

Quotes

Remarks by the President at the Export-Import Bank’s Annual Conference- March 11, 2010
"What’s more, we’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property.  Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people.  It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century.  But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.  There’s nothing wrong with other people using our technologies, we welcome it – we just want to make sure that it’s licensed, and that American businesses are getting paid appropriately."
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Remarks by the President at GOP House Issues Conference- January 29, 2010
"So part of what we've been trying to do is to make sure that we're getting the enforcement side of this tight, make sure that if we've got a trade agreement with China or other countries, that they are abiding with it – they're not stealing our intellectual property or making sure that their non-tariff barriers are lowered even as ours are opened up."
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Remarks by the President during Town Hall Meeting in Elyria, Ohio- January 22, 2010
"And one of the problems that we have had is insufficient protection for intellectual property rights.  That's true in China; it's true for everything from bootleg DVDs to very sophisticated software.  And there's nothing wrong with other people using our technologies.  We just want to make sure that it's licensed and you're getting paid."
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Remarks by the President and Q&A at the Closing Session of the Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth- December 3, 2009
"Now, part of the problem is we haven't gotten the kind of intellectual property enforcement in other countries that we need – and so understandably businesses are wary about sending their products overseas just to be duplicated and then shipped back to us using lower-wage labor.  But in some cases it really has to do with a failure to update and review what restrictions still make sense and what restrictions don't."
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Remarks by the President on Innovation and Sustainable Growth- September 21, 2009
"That's why it's essential that we enforce trade laws and work with our trading partners to open up markets abroad; that we reform and strengthen our intellectual property system; that we sustain our advantage as a place that draws and welcomes the brightest minds from all over the world; and that we unlock sources of credit and capital which have been in short supply as a result of the financial crisis."
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Press Conference by President Obama, President Calderon of Mexico, and Prime Minister Harper of Canada- August 10, 2009
"Because so much of our common prosperity and millions of jobs depend on trade that flows across our borders – billions of dollars worth of trade every day – we reaffirmed the need to reject protectionism. We recommitted ourselves to the infrastructure investments, the common-sense regulations and intellectual property protections upon which trade thrives."
Full transcript