The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) removed Taiwan from its Special 301 Priority Watch List on Jan. 18 in recognition of Taiwan's efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR).
"Taiwan has made significant progress …, particularly in strengthening enforcement and copyright protection. As a result, Taiwan has been moved from the Priority Watch List to the Watch List" noted a report in the USTR's IPR Out-of-Cycle Reviews. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that the USTR is encouraged by the progress made by Taiwan "in taking steps to address long-standing concerns over piracy and counterfeiting of U.S. intellectual property and products."
Mr. Zoellick noted, however, that the U.S. government will continue to work with Taiwan on legislation to prevent unfair commercial use of pharmaceutical test data, effective actions against piracy of copyrighted works over the Internet, and continued strengthening of enforcement efforts.
The U.S. Trade Act of 1974 instructed the USTR to annually review the commitment to and the effectiveness of IPR in various foreign countries and place them into a hierarchy of categories, with the ranking of Priority Foreign Country reserved for the worst situation: (1) Priority Foreign Country; (2) Section 306 monitoring; (3) Priority Watch List; and (4) Watch List. Taiwan had been on the Priority Watch List for four consecutive years since 2001.
