USTR Issues 2008 "Special 301" Annual Report
On April 25 2008, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released its 2008 "Special 301" annual report on the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection by U.S. trading partners.
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The USTR states the 2008 Special 301 review process examines IPR protection and enforcement in 78 countries, and designates 46 countries in the categories of Priority Watch List, Watch List, and/or Section 306 monitoring status.
Highlights of the 2008 Special 301 Annual Report
In this year's review, USTR highlights the need for significantly improved enforcement against counterfeiting and piracy, Internet piracy, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, transshipment of pirated and counterfeit goods, requirements for authorized use of legal software by government ministries, proper implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) by developed and developing country WTO members, and full implementation of TRIPS Agreement standards by new WTO members at the time of their accession.
China and Russia remain prominent IPR concerns. According to the USTR, again this year, the report highlights the prominence of concerns with respect to China and Russia, in spite of some evidence of improvement.
While the U.S. continues to seek cooperative channels to work with China to strengthen that country's IPR regime, high levels of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting remain serious concerns. At the same time, the U.S. is also using the WTO dispute settlement process to address a number of specific deficiencies in China's IPR regime. (See ITT's Online Archives or 10/11/07 news, 07101115, for most recent BP summary on the WTO dispute.)
The Administration also continues to work for improvements to the intellectual property regime in Russia. Although Russia has made some progress, large-scale production and distribution of intellectual property-infringing optical media and Internet piracy remain significant problems that require more enforcement action. The U.S. will continue to monitor to ensure that Russia moves to implement a variety of legal and law enforcement improvements to which it committed as part of a bilateral agreement with the U.S. on Russia's accession to the WTO. Implementation of these commitments remains essential to completing the final multilateral negotiations on the overall accession.
Nine countries on the Priority Watch List. The USTR states that countries on the Priority Watch List do not provide an adequate level of IPR protection or enforcement, or market access for persons relying on intellectual property protection. In addition to China and Russia, the following countries are on the Priority Watch List in this report: Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela. Priority Watch List countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year.
36 countries on the Watch List.According to USTR, 36 trading partners are on the lower level Watch List, meriting bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems. The Watch List countries are: Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Paraguay, China remain Section 306 monitoring countries. Paraguay will continue to be subject to Section 306 monitoring under a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding that establishes objectives and actions for addressing IPR concerns in that country. China will also continue to be subject to Section 306 monitoring.
Out-of-cycle reviews for Taiwan and Israel. The USTR notes that out-of-cycle reviews will be conducted for Taiwan and Israel to assess progress on specific IPR issues.
USTR press release (dated 04/25/08) available at http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Releases/2008/April/USTR_Issues_2008_Special_301_Report.html
USTR's 2008 Special 301 report available at http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Document_Library/Reports_Publications/2008/2008_Special_301_Report/asset_upload_file553_14869.pdf