USTR’s 2008 Special Section 301 Report
The Patry Copyright Blog: On Friday, April 25th, the Office of the United States Trade Representative issued its 2008 Special 301 report. Here is a link to a Press Release that contains a link to the full report. Nine countries were placed on the naughtiest of the naughty list, the Priority Watch List:
China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela. Of these China gets the most extensive treatment, 14 pages.
Thirty-six countries were placed on the naughty list, the Watch List:
Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
For those who think that USTR merely rubber-stamps IIPA’s recommendations, it should be pointed out IIPA had recommended Canada, Costa Rica, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine be placed on the Priority Watch List, but they were placed on the Watch List instead. Conversely, IIPA had recommended that Israel be placed on the Watch List, but USTR put it on the Priority Watch List. IIPA had recommended Sweden, Brunei, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan be placed on the Watch List, but USTR did not put them on the list.
The explanation for why USTR placed Israel on the Priority Watch List when IIPA had recommended it for the Watch List is easy: IIPA is concerned with copyright, and Israel has incurred USTR’s wrath over pharmaceuticals, caused by Israel’s large generic drug maker Teva. The explanation for why Canada was placed on the Watch List, rather than the Priority Watch list as IIPA recommended, may be attributable to Canada’s passing a camcorder law, but is likely also the result of IIPA’s misguided over-the-top approach to our neighbor to the…