Government seeks closer ties with US

"The US International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates that Taiwan's weak IPR protection caused trade losses to the United States of at least US$382 million in 2003."

National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers

Taiwan will try to resolve trade disputes with the US and hopes the country will be removed from the priority watch list compiled by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) office this year, officials at the Ministry of Economic Affairs said over the weekend.

The officials made the remark after Taiwan was included on a list of 55 nations that Washington accuses of unfairly erecting trade barriers against US products in its annual trade review released late last week.

Officials said the review, titled the "National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers," offered a positive outlook on Taiwan's economy and gave general approval to the nation's efforts in opening up its financial market as those efforts were made beyond the nation's WTO accession commitments.

But the review remained concerned over Taiwan's intellectual property right (IPR) protection, telecommunication liberalization, rice import system and pharmaceutical market openness.

"IPR protection continues to be a serious and contentious issue between the United States and Taiwan. The US International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates that Taiwan's weak IPR protection caused trade losses to the United States of at least US$382 million in 2003, not including losses from business software piracy," the review said.

Since 1992, Taiwan has been on and off the USTR's Special 301 Watch List of IPR violators, and was moved up to the Priority Watch List of serious violators in 2001. The nation has been on that priority list over the past three years.

The 301 watch list refers specifically to optical media, or movie, music and software disks. It is reviewed each year in April and the US government will reveal a final report by the end of the month.

The US trade report praised the government's increased frequency of raids against night markets and inspections of optical media factories that have significantly reduced the number of pirated optical media products for sale at retail levels last year.

The legislature made crucial amendments to the Optical Media Law (光碟管理條例) and the Copyright Law (著作權法) of 2003 have helped the reduction in street-level piracy.

"Nevertheless, we are seeing increasing numbers of pirated optical media for sale in non-traditional retail channels, including anonymous ordering from catalogues for home delivery and using the Internet to market illegal goods," the review said. "Production appears to be shifting from the large optical media plants to small, custom optical media burning operations."

The review also said Taiwan's judiciary continues to experience difficulties in handling technical cases, and US industry has complained about long delays in court cases.

Officials said the government will continue consultations with the US to find smooth resolutions to the issues raised by the report. Jack Lu (盧文祥), deputy director-general of the ministry' Intellectual Property Office (IPO), is scheduled to discuss with US officials and representatives from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) later this week.

The US trade report also criticized Taiwan's government procurement environment, although the nation has committed to accede to the WTO's Government Procurement Agreement (GPA).

"Taiwanese officials have continued to incorporate provisions in its public public procurement tenders that appear to be inconsistent with the GPA ... Further, the lack of transparency in the government procurement process as well as the review process for complaints remains a serious issue," the review said.