New association fights international piracy

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 8/30/2002 2:56:00 PM

New York — The American textiles industry is taking on the dramatically increasing problem of international piracy of intellectual property.

Last month the Boston-based National Textile Association (NTA) formed a working group to seek solutions to the problem and has held a meeting with Jim Leonard, deputy assistant secretary of textiles, apparel and consumer goods at the Department of Commerce and representatives of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Customs Service.

Attending the meeting were representatives from Joan, Culp, Quaker, Milliken, Cranston Print Works, Sunbury and Forstmann. The NTA committee is preparing a "white paper" to present to government officials in which they will outline the extent of the problem, theft, monetary losses experienced by American companies and request specific action the United States could take to combat intellectual property (IP) violations. The "white paper" will be developed from a survey of the American textiles industry.

The survey will go out to companies that produce upholstery fabrics, printed fabrics, apparel fabrics and rugs — the latter a product area that is seeing increased IP violations, some executives related.