Special 301 Sanction Clause treats piracy issue in Taiwan as priority

Source: Liberty Times 11/18/2001
Translated by Corrina Wu

　According to officials of the Office of the US Trade Representative, since the pirated computer software valuing ten million US dollars which came from Taiwan were seized in California, Taiwan has become again the largest global source of pirated optical medium.  U.S.A. will treat the pirated optical medium issue as the priority when discussing the special 301 watching list for Taiwan in April of next year.  According to the statistics of U.S. Customs, Taiwan was once the largest source of pirated optical medium seized in U.S.A. in 1999 and the total value of the seized pirated optical medium was US$33,620,000.  The total value of those seized in last year decreased to US$6,170,000.  Nevertheless, if Taiwan still fails to solidify the protection of intellectual property rights and impede counterfeits and pirated editions from infringing U.S. manufacturers’ interest before April of next year, U.S.A. may upgrade Taiwan to be the “first priority country” on the watching list.