India on USTR's 'priority watch list'

Washington, May 1 (UNI) The US Trade Representative (USTR) has placed India on its 'priority watch list' for failing to adequately protect producers of copyrighted, patented and trademarked materials.

The list is issued annually as part of the USTR's 'Special 301' report to the Congress, highlighting intellectual property problems facing the US companies worldwide.

The report, released yesterday, also includes a more extensive watch list of countries where such protection needs further improvement.

The report says the United States remains concerned about inadequate Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection and enforcement in India and continues to urge New Delhi to improve its IPR regime by providing stronger protection for copyrights, trademarks, and patents, as well as protection against unfair commercial use for data generated to obtain marketing approval.

It says the Washington encourages New Delhi to implement the WIPO Internet Treaties, strengthen its copyright laws and improve its IPR enforcement system, including by enacting and implementing an effective optical disc licensing scheme to combat optical disc piracy.

The USTR document says ''piracy of copyrighted works remains rampant in India''.

Its main complaint is against India's criminal IPR enforcement regime which it says remains weak with improvements required in the areas of expeditious judicial dispositions for copyright and trademark infringement, border enforcement against counterfeit and pirated goods, police action against pirates and counterfeiters, and imposition of deterrent sentences for IPR infringers.

The United States has urged India to strengthen its IPR regime, and stands ready to work with India on these issues during the coming year.

The report further says violations of intellectual property rights continue to plague world markets and pose a major challenge to innovators and artists worldwide despite clear improvements by several US trading partners.

Besides India, the other 11 countries on the ''priority watch list'' are Russia, China, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Another 31 countries were placed on the lower-level watch list that does not subject them to the same level of scrutiny as those on the priority list.

USTR cited Russia's intellectual property problems as related to large-scale production and distribution of optical media and widespread internet piracy.

Russia, along with Brazil, the Czech Republic and Pakistan, will be subject to an out-of-cycle review, which may result in a change in their Special 301 status before the next annual review in 2008.

With respect to China, the report cites persistently high levels of copyright and trademark violations and mentions the recent US decision to seek consultations under the WTO dispute settlement rules on China's IPR protection regime.

UNI