SECTION I. DEVELOPMENTS IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
PROTECTION AND ENFORCEMENT
An important part of the mission of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is supporting and implementing the Administration's commitment to aggressively protect American intellectual property overseas. Infringement of intellectual property rights (IPR) causes significant financial losses for rights holders and legitimate businesses around the world. It undermines key U.S. comparative advantages in innovation and creativity to the detriment of American businesses and workers. In its most pernicious forms, it endangers the public. Some counterfeit products, such as automobile parts and medicines, pose significant risks to consumer health and safety. In addition, trade in counterfeit and pirated products often fuels cross-border organized criminal networks and hinders the sustainable economic development of many countries.
Because fostering innovation and creativity is essential to our prosperity, competitiveness, and the support of countless jobs in the United States, USTR works to protect American inventiveness and creativity with all the tools of U.S. trade policy, including this Report.
Initiative for Special 301 Action Plans
The United States develops action plans and similar programs to address IPR issues in various contexts, including the Special 301 process. These plans and programs establish benchmarks, such as legislative, policy, or regulatory action by which to measure progress. Additionally, these plans can serve as tools to encourage U.S. trading partners to make improvements to their IPR regimes, thereby increasing the likelihood that they may be removed from the Special 301 list.
As called for in the Administration's 2010 Joint Strategic Plan on IPR Enforcement, USTR, in coordination with the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), initiated an interagency process to increase the effectiveness of, and strengthen implementation of Special 301 action plans.
As a result of that process, USTR is announcing that it invites any trading partner appearing on the Special 301 Priority Watch List or Watch List to work with the United States to develop a mutually agreed action plan designed to lead to that trading partner's removal from the relevant list. Agreement on such a plan will not by itself change a trading partner's status in the Special 301 Report. However, in the past, successful completion of action plans has led to the removal of trading partners such as Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and many others from Special 301 lists. An action plan may take more than one year to complete. Action plans differ from OCRs, which are conducted between Special 301 annual reports.
Positive Developments
The United States welcomes the following important steps by our trading partners in 2010 and early 2011:
- Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) and its Member States, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland – These trading partners, along with the United States, worked cooperatively to finalize the text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – an important new tool to fight trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy.
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