The US has announced that despite widespread progress in fighting piracy of intellectual property, Taiwan is still considered to have inadequate levels of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement, and will remain on a so-called "watch list" of violating countries for another year.
On Friday, the US Trade Representative (USTR) office released is annual report on global IPR trends, in which it decided to keep Taiwan on the watch list under its "Special 301" trade law, even though US trade officials have recently praised Taiwan for making "significant" headway in fighting piracy.
The decision had been expected, since US industries representing computer, entertainment, publishing and other companies have complained that piracy of their products continues to cost them many millions of dollars a year in lost sales, and had recommended that Taiwan be kept on the list. The USTR traditionally takes its cue from these suggestions.
Until January this year, Taiwan was on the more severe "priority watch list," but was switched to the watch list at the suggestion of those industries, as new laws and beefed up enforcement reduced the scope of piracy. Taiwanese government officials were hoping that the country would be removed from all lists this year.
The USTR's action will prolong a festering trade dispute between Washington and Taipei that has hurt bilateral relations, and which has impeded Taiwan's hope of eventually moving toward a free trade agreement with the US. Unlike last year, when the office agreed to reconsider its ruling in the fall through an "out-of-cycle review," the USTR action this time contained no provision for such a mid-term review.
Nevertheless, the USTR pointed out several areas in which Taiwan has made progress over the past year. It made special reference to last September's conviction of the managers of the Internet file-sharing service Kuro for criminal copyright infringement, which was the world's first criminal conviction of a peer-to-peer service. The court fined the three principals of the company NT$3 million (US$94,000) and sentenced them to prison terms of up to three years.
In addition, the USTR said, "The United States recognizes Taiwan's efforts to improve its IPR regime, including increasing the number of raids and seizures of pirated optical media, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and counterfeit luxury goods."
It also commended Taiwan for passing amendments to its pharmaceutical law to provide a five-year term of protection against unfair use of undisclosed test and other data submitted by drug companies seeking marketing approval.
Calling on Taiwan to take further steps, the report said the US "looks to Taiwan to sustain the current level of commitment to making progress on IPR issues, and will continue to monitor further improvements."
Such issues include production of pirated optical media and the "proliferation" of Internet piracy, plus the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials on government and university computer networks, the report said.
It called on the government to step up enforcement, establish a special IP court and devote more resources to the effort. It also urged Taiwan to boost border enforcement against transshipment of pirated goods, consider laws to address ISP liability, strengthen criminal penalties and extend the terms of copyright protection.
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