MUMBAI:The Indian Music Industry (IMI) secretary general Savio D'souza has been selected by the United States Government under the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP). The US programme would focus upon the protection of Intellectual Property Rights.

The three week group project to be held from 21 July - 8 August 2008 namely, 'Protection of Intellectual property Rights' from is one of the US Government's most prestigious professional exchange programmes from foreign opinion leaders .During the visit, D'Souza will meet American government officials, legal professionals, industry representatives and enforcement organizations to review the concept of rule of law in this arena and would also observe ways to expand it into the wider sphere of corporate ethics. The learnings from this project will bring back new ideas to save Intellectual Property Rights and to curb this evil from the society.

Under D'Souza, IMI's Intellectual property strategy has grown phenomenally. It is amongst the few well operational and well developed IP strategies of the world. IMI today ranks 3rd amongst world's enforcement agency and is undoubtly India's best. It has anti-piracy team consisting of more than 70 personnel who in the last 10 years have conducted more than 10,000 raids and achieved more than 2,000 convictions.

Savio D'Souza is an alumni of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies and a recipient of British council scholarship to study media management at the university of Stirling.

The programme was first established in 1940, was designed to familiarize the American initiatives that protect Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and also promotes IPR accountability in business worldwide.