Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), architect of SOPA and all-around Internet regulator par excellence, has resurrected his failed bill as the Intellectual Property Attaché Act. The House Judiciary Committee chief and fellow members quietly unveiled their new SOPA zombie bill on July 9.

The bill opens in typical innocuous fashion:

To promote a level playing field for American innovators abroad and American job creation by improving the intellectual property attache´ program, and coordinating and aligning intellectual property policy with compelling economic interests of the United States and freedom.

The act would expand the placement of intellectual property attachés (political operatives, basically) in US embassies around the globe, most likely to strategically influence foreign legislation governing intellectual property. The idea here being that the attaches might convince governments to adopt SOPA-like legislation, which will then make it easier to do so here in the US.

Sec. 2. (g) also empowers the Intellectual Property Attache Program to get involved in countries that are “not identified under section 182(a)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974.” And it empowers attaché to act essentially as agents of corporate copyright interests, not in the general interest of the American people.

IPAA is also notable for defining any “corporation, partnership, other business entity, or other organization” as a “United States Person.”

According to Politico, IPAA was slated for full mark-up yesterday. Stay tuned for more developments in Lamar Smith’s latest round of Internet regulation develops. It should be noted that IP attaché already exist—except now the attaché would be report to the Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) instead of the Department of Commerce.

[via Boing Boing]