Taiwan Removed from “Special 301” Priority Watch List to “Watch List”.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) on January 19, 2005 (January 18, 2005, US eastern time) issued press release announcing that it would remove Taiwan from the “Special 301” Priority Watch List and place it on the less stringent “Watch List”.

 

US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, noted in the press release that such removal is the recognition of Taiwan’s efforts represented by the passage of a revision to the Copyright Law, strengthening enforcement, and legislation of IP related laws that aim to prevent unfair commercial use of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals test data. Although no data protection laws have been enforced in Taiwan, Taiwan has made significant progress in other IPR concerns, especially the strengthening IPR laws enforcement and copyright protection, etc.. Zoellick encouraged Taiwan’s continued IPR protection to solve piracy and counterfeiting issues that have received the US’s long-standing concerns.

 

US representative indicated that continued attention will be paid to Taiwan’s commitment fulfillment of certain issues including legislation that prevents unfair commercial use of pharmaceutical data exclusivity, taking effective measures to clamp down on Internet copyright infringement, and strengthening enforcement to slash piracy and counterfeiting. In addition, US will further pay close attention to Taiwan’s efforts in monitoring the copyrighted works exportation (computer software in particular). (2005.1)

CYJ/CCS