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AROUND THE WORLD 3: Taiwan Removed from Priority Watch List

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) removed Taiwan from its Special 301 Priority Watch List on Tuesday, January 18.

The USTR must identify countries that don’t have enough protection for intellectual property rights (IPR). Intellectual properties are ideas such as copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents. The USTR wants to encourage countries to crack-down on illegal copying and selling of CDs, DVDs, etc.

The USTR recently found that both Taiwan and Poland have made improvements to their IPR laws. U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick announced that Taiwan has been downgraded from the Priority Watch List to the Watch List because Taiwan has made significant improvements in strengthening enforcement and copyright protection. However, there are still problems regarding the use of pharmaceutical and agricultural test data.

Poland has strengthened anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting measures at Warsaw Stadium. However, there are also problems with protecting test data between the Health Ministry and patent agency, so Poland will remain on the Watch List.

--Written by Teresa Liao

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