In this year's review, USTR devotes special attention to the need for significantly improved enforcement against counterfeiting and piracy. The United States places particular emphasis on the ongoing campaign to reduce production of unauthorized copies of optical media products such as compact discs (CDs), video compact discs (VCDs), digital versatile discs (DVDs), and compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROMs), as well as reducing the counterfeiting of trademarked goods. There are high rates of piracy and counterfeiting in many countries, including in China, India, and Russia. In addition, USTR continues to focus on other critically important issues, including Internet piracy, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, transshipment of pirated and counterfeit goods, requiring authorized use of legal software by government ministries, proper implementation of the TRIPS Agreement by developed and developing country WTO members, and full implementation of TRIPS Agreement standards by new WTO members at the time of their accession.
Over the past year, many developing countries and newly acceding WTO members have made progress toward implementing their TRIPS Agreement obligations. Nevertheless, full implementation of TRIPS Agreement obligations has yet to be achieved in certain countries, particularly with respect to the TRIPS Agreement's enforcement provisions. Levels of piracy and counterfeiting remain unacceptably high in these countries. The annual Special 301 review provides an opportunity to assess these issues, and the Special 301 Report sends a necessary message to the governments of countries where serious IPR-related problems exist.
Positive Progress
There has been significant positive progress on IPR protection and enforcement in several countries this past year. For example, Ukraine passed and implemented legislation to combat pirate production in optical media factories. Brazil made significant progress during the past year on copyright enforcement, specifically by adopting a National Action Plan to enforce copyrights and reduce piracy, drafting IPR legislation, increasing seizures and prosecutions, and developing strong public awareness campaigns to fight piracy. Pakistan also made significant progress by closing down numerous pirate optical disc production plants, establishing a Pakistan Intellectual Property Organization to centralize enforcement, and increasing border enforcement efforts, as well as increasing the number of raids, seizures, and arrests of IPR infringers.
Several other countries in Asia also have made significant progress on IPR issues in the past year. For example,
- Taiwan issued the first conviction to a defendant for copyright infringement over the Internet through a peer-to-peer file sharing service.
- Indonesia has made progress in combating optical disc piracy in retail shops, and has begun to increase the numbers of raids against pirate optical media production plants, seizures of pirated goods and manufacturing equipment, and arrests of IPR infringers.
- Malaysia took steps to combat pirate optical disc production by increasing the numbers of raids against illegal factories, seizing pirated goods and manufacturing equipment, and increasing arrests of copyright pirates.
