April 25, 2006

Press Release

Conference on Combating Internet Piracy

On April 27-28 in Tallinn, the US Embassy and the US Patent and Trademark Office will hold a conference on combating internet piracy titled “Copyright Infringement in the Digital Environment.”

Internet piracy is the fastest-growing and most serious form of intellectual property rights violation in countries with well-developed IT sectors like Estonia. But because internet piracy is a new, and constantly developing, form of intellectual property rights violation, there are very few countries with experience in this field. This conference will bring together more than 80 police, prosecutors, government and industry experts from 16 countries to exchange best practices on investigating and prosecuting internet piracy cases.

Conference presenters will include experts from the US Patent and Trademark Office, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Prosecutors, investigators and industry representatives from Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia will also make presentations.

The conference will take place at the Radisson SAS hotel. A press conference will be held at 12:00 on April 28. Speakers at the press conference will include Uno Loop, musician and founder of the Estonian Performers Association, Robert Stoll, Director, Office of Enforcement, US Patent and Trademark Office; Jason Gull, Senior Counsel, US Department of Justice, and Toomas Seppel, Head of Media Department, Estonian Ministry of Culture.

For more information please contact the Public Affairs Office at U.S. Embassy Tallinn by e-mail tuiskm@state.gov.