For Immediate Release

April 26, 2006

Contact: Deidre Huntington
Ph: (202) 220-4550
Email: dhuntington@publishers.org

Top US Officials to Speak on Challenges of China Market at AAP Bookexpo Event

Washington, DC, April 26, 2006:  Two of the U.S. Government’s highest officials with responsibility for intellectual property issues will headline a program on “China’s Role in the International Marketplace” to be held on Friday morning, May 19 during BookExpo America in Washington.  The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced that Jon W. Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Victoria A. Espinel, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property, will be featured speakers at the program, which will look at the opportunities and challenges facing publishers in the Chinese market.

The program, which AAP is co-sponsoring with the Publishers Association of China (PAC) and the Publishers Association, U.K. (PA) is an outgrowth of a highly successful program held last fall at the Beijing International Book Fair.  The three sponsoring organizations decided to bring the dialogue to Washington to give an American audience not only three cultural perspectives, but also an opportunity to hear about government and industry efforts to enhance the role of one of the world’s largest potential markets for publishers and to hear directly from the highest levels of the U.S. government.

In his position as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Mr. Dudas is the lead policy advisor to Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, President Bush and the Administration agencies on intellectual property issues. 

As Assistant U. S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property, Ms. Espinel is responsible for coordinating U.S. trade policy on intellectual property matters.  Among her responsibilities, Ms. Espinel is the principal U.S. trade negotiator on intellectual property, including in the WTO TRIPS Council and the U.S. free trade agreements, and oversees bilateral discussions with numerous trading partners on a wide variety of intellectual property issues. 

AAP President Pat Schroeder said: “We’re delighted to have Mr. Dudas and Ms. Espinel as part of this program. They are at the absolute cutting edge of U.S. government efforts to curb piracy and improve markets for U.S. industry, working every day to achieve the goals we all seek.”

The May 19 program, which will be held in Room 202A at the Washington Convention Center from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., will also feature a number of high level representatives from the General Administration of Press and Publication of China, as well as industry representatives from the three sponsoring organizations and their member companies. Please click here  for a complete list of speakers.

AAP will also have a booth near the event registration area highlighting information about its international efforts to defend U.S. intellectual property rights for U.S. publishers.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s more than 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies.  The protection of intellectual property rights in all media, is one of the Association’s highest priorities.

For more event details, please contact Emilia Varga-West at evargawest@publishers.org or (202) 220-4553.

Download more information about this press release.
(If this is a .pdf file, you'll need version 4.0
of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. It's available
free from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com.)