The United-States Trade Representative (“USTR”) released its annual Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Rights yesterday (see press release here, and full report here).
This year’s report is the USTR’s 25th since it first released a report on intellectual property rights in 1989, which was then called the "Special 301 Fact Sheet”. The report is an annual review of the state of intellectual property protection and enforcement in trading partners of the US. 82 of the United States’ trading partners were reviewed, 27 were placed on the Watch List, and 10 on the Priority Watch List. Indonesia is on the Priority Watch List, and will therefore receive extra attention from the USTR during the coming year. Other countries on the Priority Watch list this year are:
- Algeria;
- Argentina;
- Chile;
- China;
- India;
- Pakistan;
- Russia;
- Thailand; and
- Venezuela.
The report recognises Indonesia’s engagement with the USTR through its IPR Working Group, increasing numbers of enforcement actions, and joint training by US Homeland Security (which we wrote about here). However, the report identifies the following problems as reasons for keeping Indonesia on the USTR’s Priority Watch List:
- legislative gaps;
- ineffectiveness of enforcement actions;
- growing levels of piracy online;
- an inefficient judicial system;
- market access barriers;
- copyright piracy, and in particular the problem of media boxes; and
- manufacture and distribution of counterfeit pharmaceutical products.
This year, Italy and the Philippines were removed from the Watch List in recognition of improvements to intellectual property protection and enforcement. If Indonesia were to follow suit, it would be promised more favourable trading arrangements with the United States.
We wrote about last year’s Special 301 Report here.