US places India, Pak on IPRs Priority Watch List

Islamabad, Apr 29: India and Pakistan are among the nine countries placed on the "Priority Watch List" because of an absence of provisions of adequate level of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection, enforcement and market access for international companies relying on intellectual property protection, in the two countries.

The other seven countries on this year's Priority Watch List are: China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Thailand, and Venezuela. These countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year, reported the Daily Times.

According to the paper, in 2007 Pakistan was placed in 'Special 301' report at simple watch list due to providing adequate level of protection for intellectual property rights as per the satisfaction of the international community. However, mid-year Out-of-Cycle Review conducted by the US authorities to monitor Pakistan's progress on enacting legislation to provide effective protection against unfair commercial use of undisclosed test and other data resulted in lowering of its international IPR standing, and Pakistan has been placed on Priority Watch List for year 2008.

The US will continue to monitor closely the IPR situation, and will work together with Pakistan to achieve further improvements in its IPR protection and enforcement regimes, concludes the report.

ANI