ATP provides grants to private industry that are designed to stimulate research and development in high-risk technologies with significant commercial potential. We are also expanding our technology deployment efforts because technology has little economic benefit unless it is widely used. We are making progress toward fulfilling that commitment Incorporating lessons drawn from the seven original centers, the Department of Commerce has begun a scale-up that includes linkages with regional, state, and local programs to establish the nationwide Manufacturing Extension Partnership network. Throughout our technology policy, we are looking for opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries. It spreads risk, and combines complementary technological strengths in which the gains from cooperation may be particularly large.
Advanced manufacturing is a strategic area.
And, the IMS Program is an effort to seize this opportunity. IMS can be an innovative catalytic agent for global manufacturing cooperation. IMS can be a means to address manufacturing research of importance to all regions of the world, and to develop and promote international manufacturing standards. IMS can be an agent to effectively involve large and small companies, academia, governments and consortia in international manufacturing cooperation. In this regard I want to stress that the IMS IPR Guidelines represent a ground breaking example of a world-wide agreement on IPR to guide private sector interactions.