Asian nations on piracy blacklist

Asian nations on piracy blacklist

Agence France-Presse, Washington

China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines led a
blacklist of Asian copyright violators released Friday by the
United States, which sought tough action to combat piracy and
counterfeiting of U.S. goods.

One country, Ukraine, remained in the category of worst
offenders on copyright infringement as a "priority foreign
country," with US$75 million in sanctions still in place, the
office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.

A total of 14 nations were placed on a "priority watch list,"
with China added to the list this year.

The others included Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India,
Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines,
Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela.

The USTR said that while infringement levels remained
"unacceptably high" throughout China, in spite of Beijing's
efforts to reduce them, there was some progress in the region in
protecting intellectual property rights.

It cited Indonesia and the Philippines, which recently passed
legislation to combat optical media piracy and Malaysia and
Taiwan, which had begun to take more enforcement actions, as well
as India's passage of a new law to improve patent protection.

Acting Trade Representative Peter Allgeier indicated that
India might receive benefits for taking some firm measures.

"India took a significant step to improve its patent
protection regime this year with passage of a new Patent
Amendment," Allgeier said.

"We will closely monitor implementation of the amendment, and
we are considering actions that would acknowledge progress in
this area."

The USTR elevated China to the "priority watch list" because
of "serious concerns about China's compliance with its
obligations" under the World Trade Organization rules and joint
commitments.

Economies on the list do not provide an adequate level of
protection or enforcement of intellectual property rights, or
market access for persons relying on that protection.

The USTR uses a three-step warning list to designate countries
according to the degree of abuses.

The priority watch list is the second most serious of the
three, below "Priority Foreign Countries," which China was listed
on in 1994 but then removed after striking a bilateral agreement
with the U.S. government.

This year's "Special 301" report on the adequacy and
effectiveness of protection for intellectual property was based
on an annual review under the section of U.S. law for which it is
named.

Among the 36 trading partners on the "watch list" -- which
entails "bilateral attention to address underlying IPR problems"
-- were South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

South Korea was lowered from the priority watch list in 2004.

This year's report also announced so called "out-of-cycle"
review for seven countries, including the Philippines and
Indonesia.