The U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on Friday announced this year’s “Special 301″ list of countries failing to adequately protect the rights of IP owners. Kudos to The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, for making it off the Watch List due to improvements in their borders. USTR noted these successes follow similar improvements in Israel and Saudi Arabia. Here’s Kirk:

“Intellectual property theft in overseas markets is an export killer for American businesses and a job killer for American workers here at home. USTR’s Special 301 report is important because it serves as the foundation for a year-round process used to secure meaningful reforms that bolsters our exports and supports American jobs in IPR-intensive industries.”

China continues to be a problem. And unfortunately, of 77 U.S. trading partners reviewed this year, 41 countries made the Priority Watch List, Watch List, or the Section 306 monitoring list (see them listed here).

USTR generally announces the annual list around World IP Day, which was last Monday. (Here’s our summary of the 2009 list.) While I was moderating a panel at IPI’s event, Ambassador Kirk and other government officials spoke at another event. Here’s a highlight from Ambassador Kirk:

“Protecting American intellectual property, whether it is trademark protection for a new brand that distinguishes the high quality of an American firm’s goods or services from its competitors, copyright protection for the works of creative American authors, performers, producers and publishers, or patent protection for the latest technological innovation, is critical for ensuring that American firms can compete in the global environment.

“Countries that fail to respect U.S. intellectual property, either by failing to implement or enforce laws that adequately protect American intellectual property, or creating policies that disadvantage U.S. right holders, put American workers and businesses at a disadvantage.

“Let’s be clear: IP theft in overseas markets is a job killer, and it’s an export killer. USTR will work with a broad range of stakeholders to vigorously pursue changes to the policies of trading partners that put us at such a disadvantage.”

Ambassador Kirk noted the Special 301 report was about to come out, and added “[w]e will negotiate agreements that commit our trading partners to protecting American intellectual property, such as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

Several copyright-focused organizations praised USTR for its latest Special 301 effort, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Entertainment Software Association, and the International Intellectual Property Alliance.

Next up will be the U.S. Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus. Co-chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said last Monday on the IPI panel I moderated that we should be seeing that shortly. Here’s my summary of last year’s announcement. This is the time of year where we’re reminded that whether policymakers are in the executive or legislative branches of the U.S. government, they are focused clearly on enforcing creators’ rights.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, international, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.