WASHINGTON D.C. – This week, Fellows from The Progress & Freedom Foundation will be traveling to South America for " Digital Americas 2006," a series of events and meetings with policymakers and industry leaders on intellectual property protection and economic development. Two conferences, co-sponsored with local associations involved in intellectual property, will be held in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.

Digital Americas 2006 will kick off this Friday, April 7th, with an event in Buenos Aires titled, "Intellectual Property and Innovation in the Digital World." Discussion panel topics include copyrights and piracy, standards and interoperability, and an economic analysis of intellectual property rights. Speakers, drawn from government agencies and industries with a stake in intellectual property rights include Graciela Peiretti, National Director for Copyrights in Argentina and Miguel Angel Emery, Consultant for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The event will be co-hosted with La Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas (ESEADE), an academic institution specializing in business, economics and political science.

The following Tuesday, April 11th, PFF staff will travel to Sao Paulo to co-host its second event, "Intellectual Property in the Digital World - The Importance for Brazilian Development." The agenda currently includes a panel focusing on the patentability of software implemented inventions and a discussion on the importance of the software industry for the development of Brazil's economy. Featured speakers include Gerald Masoudi, U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General for International, Policy and Appellate Matters, and Brazilian Secretary of Technology and Innovation Augusto Gadelha Vieira. The event will be co-hosted with Associação Brasileira da Propriedade Intelectual (ABPI).

Fellows from the Foundation will be reporting their impressions of the conference in "real time" on the Digital Americas blog. Agendas and complete panelist rosters are available on the Digital Americas section of the PFF website.

PFF's trip to South America will be the third international conference organized by the Foundation. PFF has hosted two Digital Europe events, the first in Milan and Brussels in February of 2005 and the latest in Prague this past January. The Foundation is also organizing a third Digital Europe conference in Lake Como, Italy. 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.

Those wishing to attend the conferences in Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo may contact Eileen Goulding of The Progress & Freedom Foundation at 202-289-8928 or egoulding@pff.org. More information is available in the Digtal Americas section of the PFF website.

ESEADE was founded in 1978 as an autonomous institution dedicated to teaching business administration, economics, finance and political science. Today ESEADE is a University Institute recognized by the Argentine Department of Education. ABPI is a non-profit founded in 1963 that studies intellectual property in the context of legislation and jurisprudence.

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.