The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Tuesday announced it would remove Taiwan from the "Special 301" Priority Watch List and place it on the less stringent Watch List in recognition of the nation's progress in protecting intellectual property rights (IPR).
In the report, the USTR said Taiwan had made "significant progress" in cracking down on commercial piracy and had bolstered its IPR-protection legislation over the past year.
Taiwan has been on the "priority watch list" for four consecutive years.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that Taiwan's efforts in cracking down on piracy over the past year had been commendable.
The progress Taiwan has made in improving its IPR environment includes the passage of a revision to the Copyright Law (
However, Zoellick also said that Taiwan could do a better job in protecting the data exclusivity of pharmaceutical products, since the US thinks that IPR threats still exist in the area.
Pharmaceutical data exclusivity refers to the legal protection of the results of efficacy and safety tests conducted by pharmaceutical firms before they receive government approval for the drugs.
The report also suggested that Taiwan should continue to strengthen IPR laws pertaining to agrochemical products, and crack down on unauthorized Internet music-file downloading and other commercial piracy.
Tsai Lien-sheng (
"We are working on addressing the issues that concern the US ... with amendments to related laws that are expected to be passed, I'm confident that Taiwan can be removed completely from the Watch List," Tsai said.
Concerns over protection of the data exclusivity of pharmaceutical products, for example, may be resolved soon, with the legislature last week preliminarily passing amendments to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law (
Tsai said the new amendments grant a five-year protection period to test and study results for new drugs. The amendments also provide a three-year protection period for improvements to existing products.
Hoping that the USTR will remove Taiwan from the Special 301 watch list altogether in April when it conducts its annual review, the ministry will speed up drafting of laws to regulate online IPR infringement, Tsai added.
As the government has stopped using the Export Management Systems to screen for pirated disks, Tsai said the office will transfer the budget and resources into the training of a task force to clamp down on physical and virtual piracy, hoping to lower Taiwan's piracy rate from 43 percent to under 40 percent this year.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS