The US government's decision to retain Taiwan on its "Special 301" priority watch list for the fourth year in a row may backfire instead of pressing the country to match the US's insatiable appetite in fighting piracy, a government official said yesterday.
"Would Taiwan do more if its best-ditch effort was not appreciated," asked Jack Lu (盧文祥), deputy director-general of the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Intellectual Property Office, during an interview with the Taipei Times.
"Now we have a weaker stance from which to convince legislators to pass amendments regarding protection of technology products such as online music and digital content as they [the US] wish, because they said whatever we do, we'll still be a black sheep and will still be on the priority watch list anyway," Lu said.
"The morale of our task force is sinking as well," Lu said.
Last year, Taiwan has made its biggest strides ever in combating piracy by passing amendments to the Copyright Law (
Figures released by the US also showed that Taiwan outperformed several other countries last year in choking off pirated goods.
"Taiwan has done more than any country in the world in line with expectations of US industry," said Robin Winkler, senior partner at the Taipei law firm of Winkler Partners.
On the eve of the US Trade Representative (USTR) office issuing its USTR 2004 Special 301 Report Lu visited the USTR office, copyright holders such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and social groups such as the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) and International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA).
These US organizations had generally praised Taiwan's progress in curbing privacy in the past year, and IACC even expected Taiwan to be removed from the watch list.
Prior to his visit, the government submitted amendments on the protection of technology products for the current legislative session as the US wished, Lu said.
But the move still failed to please the US.
"They never tell us what the standard is, or they are raising the bar once we reach it," Lu said.
He said that Taiwan appears caught in an endless cycle of trick-or treating, with the US continuously knocking on the door looking for candy.
An IIPA report indicated that trade losses due to copyright piracy in Taiwan last year totalled US$452.7 million. Piracy in Italy and Mexico accounted for trade losses of US$686 million and US$712.3 million, respectively, yet both countries are just on the watch list.
The US apparently overlooked the same report noting that Tai-wan's piracy rate for record and music products declined from 47 percent in 2002 to 43 percent last year, while the value of counterfeit goods from Taiwan seized by the US Customs Service plunged from US$26.5 million in 2002 to just US$610,000 last year.
But if the US government is ignoring its own statistics to keep Taiwan on the priority watch list, it is hard not to believe its actions are political motivated, said a ministry official who didn't want to be named.
Taiwan is been keen to sign a Free Trade Agreement with the US and other countries to help it counter pressure from China, but the US has argued that Taiwan's poor record in IPR protection is hampering such a pact.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained