The Gray Blog

On Friday the Senate approved passage of the PRO-IP act after stripping out provisions which would have given the department of justice the power and obligation to litigate civil suits on behalf of content owners. Initially known as the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, s.3325, the bill was recently renamed the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act.” (PRO-IP) The civil enforcement provision was one of the most controversial about the new law and had induced the Department of Justice to submit a letter to the Senate complaining that the law threatened to turn government attorneys into “pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources.”

A remaining provision which has drawn fire is the creation of an IP “czar” within the White House. The Bush administration has objected to this as an usurpation of executive authority. Nevertheless this latter provision remains in the act and raises the questions of whether the White House will exercise its veto.