Sun, Apr 27, 2008 page11

• US points finger at China, Russia over pirated goods

  COPYCATS The US Trade Representative's office's annual watch list also included Argentina, Chile, India and Israel, while Belize and Lithuania were removed from the report

  • AFP
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  The US on Friday named China and Russia as among the worst protectors of intellectual property rights, flooding global trade with counterfeit items such as DVDs, designer bags, medicines and software.

  In an annual report on intellectual property rights protection, the US Trade Representative’s office singled out China and Russia for allegedly failing to respect US patents and copyrights.

  The Special 301 Report, named after the section of US law on which it is based, spotlights “one of the central challenges facing the global economy,” US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said.

  “Pirates and counterfeiters don’t just steal ideas; they steal jobs, and too often they threaten our health and safety,” she said.

  The report said US authorities still see “serious” concerns with respect to China and Russia, in spite of some evidence of improvement in both countries.

  Schwab’s office said it would keep China on its priority watch list and maintain pressure on Beijing to improve its intellectual property rights (IPR) situation.

  “While the United States continues to seek cooperative channels to work with China to strengthen that country’s IPR regime, high levels of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting remain serious concerns,” her office said.

  Meanwhile, the US government is also using the WTO’s dispute settlement process “to address a number of specific deficiencies in China’s IPR regime,” it said.

  Russia has made some progress in improving its IPR regime, for example in raiding unlicensed factories.

  However, large-scale production and distribution of IP-infringing optical media and Internet piracy in Russia “remain significant problems that require more enforcement action.”

  China and Russia are among the nine countries on this year’s priority watch list that also includes Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.

  Those countries will be the subject of “particularly intense” bilateral dialogue during the coming year, the USTR said.

  The world’s largest economy and China, its emerging Asian rival, already are at loggerheads over copyright protection at the WTO, the international trade watchdog.

  The WTO agreed in September to hear a US complaint filed in April of last year alleging that Beijing’s legal structure for protecting and enforcing copyright and trademark protections is unfairly deficient and does not comply with WTO rules.

  Washington claims that US firms have lost billions of dollars due to copyright theft and piracy in China while Beijing insists it is doing its best to stamp out the problem.

  In a call with reporters on Friday, the assistant US trade representative in charge of intellectual property, Stan McCoy, said: “If things proceed in line with current expectations, a decision from the [WTO] panel would be possible this fall.”

  The USTR report also noted that the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit pharmaceuticals is a “growing problem” that particularly threatens consumer health and safety.

  It cited a “proliferation” of phony drug production in Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia.

  Of the 46 countries covered in the Special 301 Report, four — Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Ukraine — were moved from last year’s priority watch list to a watch list because of their improvements in IPR protection, the trade representative office said.

  Two trading partners — Belize and Lithuania — were being removed from the report.
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