Counterfeit Law Blog

On Monday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released its annual “Special 301” report on the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection by U.S. trading partners. Once again, this year’s Special 301 report highlights concerns with China and Russia, both of which are on the Priority Watch List along with Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela. 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. Priority Watch List countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year.

Thirty countries are on the lower level Watch List, meriting bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems: Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa

Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. This year, Brazil was moved to the Watch List (from the Priority Watch List), reflecting the USTR’s perception that it has made significant improvements in copyright enforcement. The Bahamas, Bulgaria, Croatia, the EU, and Latvia were removed from the Special 301 list altogether. 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.

With respect to Russia, the report focused on the large-scale production and distribution of IP-infringing optical media and minimally-restrained Internet piracy. However, noting that Russia has made ambitious commitments to improve its IPR protection and enforcement, the USTR also announced that it will conduct an out-of-cycle review for Russia which could result in a change in its status before next April’s Special 301 report. The out-of-cycle review will measure Russia’s progress in implementing legal and law enforcement improvements that it committed to in its bilateral agreement with the United States on Russia’s eventual accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). (Similar out-of-cycle reviews will be carried out with respect to Brazil, the Czech Republic and Pakistan.)

With respect to China, the Special 301 report describes the United States’ plan to
maintain China on the Priority Watch List and to continue Section 306 monitoring, as well as to pursue World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement with China on a number of IPR protection and enforcement issues. In conjunction with the release of the Special 301 report, the USTR also announced the results of a year-long review of strengths and weaknesses in IPR protection and enforcement in key Chinese provinces.