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US returns its attention to
property rights With
China's long campaign to accede to the World Trade Organisation finally nearing
an end, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is again
scrutinising the state of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the
mainland.
'Retail piracy [in China] remains terrible,' said
assistant USTR Joseph Papovich, whose brief includes issues relating to
services, investment and intellectual property. '[China's entry to the WTO] adds a new element. You do
not lose a weapon, you gain one,' Mr Papovich said, noting that the USTR has not
been shy to investigate - and threaten sanctions against - WTO member countries
it feels have failed to adequately protect the intellectual property rights of
US companies.
Mr Papovich was speaking in Guangzhou, where he
arrived on Tuesday to meet industry representatives and local government bureaus
responsible for IPR protection.
Mr Papovich moved on to Beijing yesterday, where he
was scheduled to meet central Government officials, including representatives
from the Supreme People's Court.
In the early and mid-1990s, the state of IPR
protection in the mainland was a key concern for the USTR. Using the so-called
'Special 301' powers granted to it by the 1974 Trade Act, the USTR declared
China a 'priority foreign country' in April 1991 and in June 1994 for its
alleged failure to protect the intellectual property of US companies. Once so
identified, priority foreign countries are subjected to USTR investigations
which can lead to trade sanctions.
Its investigations in the mainland brought China and
the US to the brink of a trade war on three separate occasions, in January 1992,
March 1995 and in June 1996.
Since 1996, China's compliance with previously
negotiated IPR agreements has been monitored by the USTR. But the mainland was
not subjected to any other IPR investigations and the USTR concentrated on
China's accession to the WTO, with the primary aim of securing market access
concessions for US companies.
With accession to the WTO imminent, IPR issues are
again coming to the fore. But unlike its previous efforts, this time the focus
is on trademark rather than copyright infringements. Throughout the 1990s, US studios and software
companies, led by industry organisations such as the Business Software Alliance,
were highly effective in dramatising their plight in the mainland and lobbying
the USTR for support.
Following their example, multinational consumer
companies banded together earlier this year to form the China
Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, with the objective of improving trademark
protection.
That does not mean China will again be branded a
priority foreign country for failing to protect US trademarks when the USTR
conducts its global IPR review next spring. For the time being, industry and US
government efforts are concentrating on practical measures to help mainland
authorities improve their IPR protection regime.
One area of concern is the often impossibly high
burden of proof required of mainland IPR investigators, and still lenient
penalties for counterfeiters.
'They have to increase the administrative sanctions so
they are not just a slap on the wrist,' Mr Papovich said.
He singled out Beijing's on-going 'anti-fakes'
campaign, launched late last month and scheduled to run until Chinese New Year,
as an example of China's often frustrating IPR enforcement environment.
'What they have announced is terrific, but a
three-month campaign is not going to solve anything,' he said. |
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