Jason Weinstein at a House subcommittee hearing on intellectual property rights last week (photo by Ryan J. Reilly / Main Justice).

Ahead of a White House round-table meeting between entertainment executives and high level government officials earlier this week, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein testified before a House subcommittee on the Justice Department’s efforts to protect intellectual property.

Weinstein reported that the Justice Department was working with foreign government agency partners in Europe and Asia. The “cornerstone” of the department’s efforts, said Weinstein, is the Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordinator (IPLEC) program. Working with the State Department, DOJ “deployed two experienced federal prosecutors to serve as coordinators in Bangkok, Thailand, for Southeast Asia and Sofia, Bulgaria, for Eastern Europe.”

One of the major problem areas for intellectual property right enforcement has been China, Weinstein told lawmakers. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Oversight and Government Reform panel’s subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement, said China is the expert on stealing intellectual property.

Weinstein said China “had been a significant source of counterfeit and pirated products imported into the United States and presents an especially greater challenge to U.S. law enforcement.” He said the department has “prioritized developing strong working relationships with Chinese law enforcement officials.” One of the projects that came out of the cooperation between U.S. and Chinese law enforcement was Operation Summer Solstice, the largest-ever joint criminal enforcement operation between the FBI and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security. That effort resulted in the arrest of 25 people. Eleven Summer Solstice defendants have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one-and-a-half to six-and-a-half years, Weinstein said.

Most recently, reports the New York Times, the Chinese government is clamping down on Internet file-sharing sites:

Under the new controls, more than 700 Web sites have been shut down, including many that offered free movies, television dramas and music downloads. BT China, which recorded at least 250,000 visits daily, was among them. China’s largest file-sharing site, Very CD, must obtain a new license or face possible shutdown as well, according to news media reports.

Weinstein’s full testimony before the subcommittee is embedded below.

DAAG Weinstein Testimony

U.S. Attorney of Maryland Rod Rosenstein, a Bush holdover, has lost his best prosecutors to Main Justice, reports the Washington Post.

The new deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division Jason Weinstein had previously been working in the federal prosecutor’s Baltimore office as the chief of violent crimes.  Another loss has been Mythili Raman, who left her job as Rosenstein’s appellate chief to become chief of staff for Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer.  Raman’s successor is Michael Leotta, a prosecutor in the fraud and corruption unit in Baltimore; Leotta is one of the prosecutors in the case of former lobbyist and John Abramoff associate Kevin Ring.  The final loss was James Trusty, now deputy chief of the national gang unit at Main Justice.  Trusty had previously been the deputy chief of Rosenstein’s Greenbelt office and overseen the prosecution of the MS-13 gang and has been succeeded by Michael Pauzé, who was a prosecutor in the case of former Prince George’s schools chief Andre Hornsby.

But it seems that while Rosenstein’s best prosecutors have left, Rosenstein will stay, for good.

In the process of tapping members of Rosenstein’s staff to move up to Main Justice, Breuer expressed his confidence in Rosenstein, “Rod has cultivated an incredible roster of attorneys, and, knowing Rod, I expect he’ll continue to do just that.”

Most importantly, Maryland’s Democratic Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin have expressed support for Rosenstein in his current post.  But they did not support the 2007 nomination of Rosenstein for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.  The Senators have finally found someone to fill the seat, which has been vacant for almost nine years, Andre Davis.  Davis has already been nominated by President Obama, but as we reported last week, his nomination has been delayed for the time being.