World Intellectual Property Day ‘Celebration’ Focuses Instead on Attacks on IP Owners

April 26 marked the 15th World Intellectual Property Day, in recognition of the day the World Intellectual Property Organization Convention came into force in 1970.

For the ninth year, the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) held a symposium in Washington—two days early this year—to celebrate.

“It’s easy these days to focus on the controversies,” IPI President Tom Giovanetti said as an introduction. But this one day gives a chance to “pause and remember how important in our modern economy intellectual property is,” he said.

Keynote speaker Dana R. Colarulli, director of the Office of Governmental Affairs at the Patent and ...