The event held at the Slovenian chamber of commerce in cooperation with Institute Libertas was opened by H.E. Sigrid Berka, the Austrian Ambassador to Slovenia.
The first panel, moderated by Journalist Dejan Steinbuch on Intellectual property rights and the public interest provided a lively debate between Andrew Kovalcin, Jared Parks who both laid the ground in defence of Intellectual Property Rights as a base for economic growth, creativity and innovation and the four representatives of Slovenian politicians. Steinbuch challenged the four representatives oft he mayor political parties on Uber, AirBnB and brand protection.
Jared Parks of the US Chamber of Commerce spoke about the importance of intellectual property rights to driving innovation, creativity, jobs, and economic growth. He also discussed the importance of intellectual property to advancing human progress through scientific advances and the arts. To demonstrate the empirical evidence of the importance of IP, Parks gave a presentation on the US Chamber’s latest International IP Index, which benchmarks world economies’ IP regimes and draws statistical correlations between more robust IP systems and increased foreign direct investment, research and development, and other positive outcomes.
Andrew Kovalcin of Advanced Advocacy touted the need for Slovenia to protect IP specifically trademarks. He cited the 2016 OECD report that puts the value of imported fake goods worldwide at $461 billion in 2013, compared with total imports in world trade of 17.9 trillion. That’s more than double prior estimates in 2005 and more than double the 2014 profits of the top ten companies in the world combined.
Andrej Šircelj (Deputy of the National Assembly, SDS – Slovenian Democratic Party Deputy Group)
Jan Škoberne (Deputy of the National Assembly, SD – Social Democrats Deputy Group)
Jernej Vrtovec (Deputy of the National Assembly, NSi – New Slovenia – Christian Democrats Deputy Group)
Klemen Grošelj (List of Marjan Šarec – LMŠ)
Panel 2 Freedom vs Governance presented an intellectual crossfire between
Dan Denning (Founder of Southbank Investment Research)
Karl-Peter Schwarz (Jornalist)
Žiga Turk (Professor and Vice Dean at University of Ljubljana; Former Minister in Govt. of Slovenia) and Michael Williams.
„People don’t need protection from the consequences of their decisions. A great European value is property. Privacy is an attribute of property. We need a Digital Rights of Man to protect our right to privacy and free speech.“
Dan Denning