SHIPMENTS
Shipments were made to the North Korean state firm, Korea Mining Development Trading Corp, which is blacklisted in the US for selling banned equipment to Syria and Iran last year.
Stuart Levey, US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism, said the couple and their firms faced a ban on doing business with any US citizens and a freeze on any assets under US jurisdiction.
Alex Tsai was indicted last year by Taiwanese prosecutors for forging invoices and illegally shipping restricted materials to North Korea, Levey said.
A Treasury spokesman refused to identify what equipment the firms allegedly sold to North Korea, but other sources said they were items that could be used in the manufacture of missiles.
Despite these setbacks, experts said that Taiwan's removal from the watch list should help improve US-Taiwanese trade across the board even in the wake of the economic slowdown.
LOCAL RESPONSE
The Intellectual Property Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday welcomed the news.
The director-general of the office, Wang Mei-hua (王美花), said the development was an indication that Taiwan's efforts to protect intellectual property rights had won the recognition of the US.
Wang said that the establishment of the intellectual property court on July 1 last year was the most important achievement in the nation's efforts to promote IPR protection, adding that the court had received 700 cases as of the end of the year.
Wang said Taiwan was one of the few countries in the world, along with Malaysia and Thailand, that has set up an intellectual property court. Most countries, she said, have only established intellectual property tribunals. Over the past year, Taiwan has also stepped up IPR enforcement on campuses to combat Internet and textbook piracy, she said.
The government is also taking aim at copyright infringements on the Internet and has submitted a draft amendment of the Copyright Law to the legislature last October that would provide incentives to Internet service providers to help curb such infringements.
She said her office would hold a public hearing on the legislation next week and hoped that it could clear the legislature during the next legislative session, which is due to begin next month.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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