The US on Thursday placed Canada, Indonesia and Algeria on a blacklist of intellectual property rights (IPR) violators, joining nations such as China and Russia that have long been branded copyright pirates.
This was the first time Canada, the top US trading partner, was put on the “Priority Watch List.” It reflects “increasing concern about the continuing need for copyright reform, as well as continuing concern about weak border enforcement” in Canada, said the annual Washington review of the global state of IPR protection and enforcement.
“In this time of economic uncertainty, we need to redouble our efforts to work with all of our trading partners — even our closest allies and neighbors such as Canada — to enhance protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the context of a rules-based trading system,” said US Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk as he released the report.
The “Special 301” report, compiled by the USTR office, also elevated Algeria and Indonesia to the Priority Watch List.
In Indonesia, the report said, “there has been little progress on IPR protection and enforcement since 2006,” when the Southeast Asian nation began taking “promising steps.”
“That trend has not continued, and the government appears to be moving backward from some previous advances,” it said.
The report also underlined “continuing serious concerns” in China and Russia, both of which were maintained on the blacklist despite “some evidence of improvement” on copyright protection in both countries.
“I am particularly troubled by reports that Chinese officials are urging more lenient enforcement of IPR laws, motivated by the financial crisis and the need to maintain jobs,” Kirk said. “China needs to strengthen its approach to IPR protection and enforcement, not weaken it.”
US President Barack Obama’s administration, according to the report, was also seeking improvements to the intellectual property regime in Russia.
“The United States is committed to ensuring that Russia fulfills the promises it made to improve its IPR protection and enforcement regimes as part of a bilateral agreement with the United States,” it said.
The USTR office reviewed 77 trading partners for this year’s report, placing 46 of them on the Priority Watch List or on a lower “Watch List” or a “monitoring list.” The 12 trading partners on the Priority Watch List did not provide an adequate level of IPR protection or enforcement, or market access for those relying on intellectual property protection, the USTR office said. Aside from China, Russia, Canada, Indonesia and Algeria, countries on this year’s Priority Watch List are Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.
They will be the subject of particularly “intense engagement” through bilateral discussion during the coming year, the statement said.
Thirty-three trading partners were on the lower level Watch List, meriting what the USTR office called “bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems.”
They comprised Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
South Korea was removed from the Watch List this year but the USTR office warned that it would consider returning the country to the list “if it does not respond effectively to this challenge through its implementation of newly enacted legislation and other steps.
“This marks the first time in the history of the report that Korea has not appeared on either the Watch List or the Priority Watch List,” the statement said.
Paraguay will continue to be monitored under a bilateral memorandum of understanding that established objectives and actions for addressing IPR concerns in that country, the statement said.
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