Interoperability and Innovation Examined
in the Digital Age
Topics are Focus of 2nd Annual PFF Digital Europe

The digital age knows no geographic boundaries, and the critical role of intellectual property rights in innovation holds true as much in Europe as it does in the United States. Recognizing the need to focus the debate on allowing competition in free markets reinforced with a proper recognition of intellectual property rights, senior fellows from The Progress & Freedom Foundation will again travel to Europe to host events and meet with policymakers and industry leaders.

The digital economy has triggered dramatic changes in Europe just as it has here, and businesses and policymakers are scrambling to keep up. 

PFF Digital Europe 2006, the second annual Digital Europe event, has as its centerpiece a January 17th conference in Prague titled "Intellectual Property and Innovation in the Digital World." PFF President Ray Gifford, Vice President for Research Tom Lenard and Director of PFF's Center for the Study of Digital Property James DeLong will participate in the January 17th conference, which PFF is co-hosting with CERGE-EI, a joint venture of Charles University and the Czech Republic Academy of Sciences, and the Liberální Institut, a Czech-based think tank born of the "Velvet Revolution."

"When we held our first Digital Europe in February of 2005, I said it was our first formal outreach across the Atlantic , but it wouldn't be our last," says Gifford. "The digital economy has triggered dramatic changes in Europe just as it has here, and businesses and policymakers are scrambling to keep up. We enjoy partnering with our friends in Europe who share the belief that the best approach in the Digital Age is to rely on the creativity of private companies acting within free markets, with governments playing their classic role of defining and enforcing property rights and protecting the integrity of the market."

In organizing these events abroad, PFF is building on its eleven-year track record in hosting the Aspen Summit, its annual gathering of the digital world's most prominent business leaders, probing thinkers and influential policymakers. PFF Digital Europe 2005 began in Milan, Italy, with Gifford, Lenard, DeLong and PFF Senior Adjunct Fellow Solveig Singleton joining with Istituto Bruno Leoni to host an all-day conference titled "Interoperability in the Digital World: Open Standards, Open Source, Property Rights and Markets." Additional events were held in Brussels , Belgium , involving members of the European Parliament and EU officials, held in conjunction with the Centre for the New Europe.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. It is a 501(c)(3) research & educational organization.