U.S. adds Canada, Indonesia, Algeria to copyright blacklist

[Al-khiyal]

U.S. adds Canada, Indonesia, Algeria to copyright blacklist

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Thursday placed Canada, Indonesia and Algeria on a blacklist of intellectual property rights violators, joining nations such as China and Russia that were long branded copyright pirates.

This is the first time Washington put Canada, its top trading partner, on the "Priority Watch List."

It reflects "increasing concern about the continuing need for copyright reform, as well as continuing concern about weak border enforcement" in Canada, said an annual U.S. government review of the global state of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement.

"In this time of economic uncertainty, we need to redouble our efforts to work with all of our trading partners - even our closest allies and neighbors such as Canada - to enhance protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in the context of a rules-based trading system," said United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk.

American lawmakers are to raise the IPR concerns with Canada at a bilateral inter-parliamentary meeting on May 15-18, said Howard Berman, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives foreign affairs committee.

The annual "Special 301" report, compiled by the USTR office, also elevated Algeria and Indonesia to the Priority Watch List.

In addition, the report underlined "continuing serious concerns" in China and Russia, both of which were maintained on the blacklist despite "some evidence of improvement" on copyright protection in both countries.

"I am particularly troubled by reports that Chinese officials are urging more lenient enforcement of IPR laws, motivated by the financial crisis and the need to maintain jobs," Kirk said.

"China needs to strengthen its approach to IPR protection and enforcement, not weaken it."

President Barack Obama's administration, according to the report, was also seeking improvements to the intellectual property regime in Russia.

"The United States is committed to ensuring that Russia fulfills the promises it made to improve its IPR protection and enforcement regimes as part of a bilateral agreement with the United States," it said.

The USTR office reviewed 77 trading partners for this year's report, placing 46 of them on the Priority Watch List or on a lower "Watch List" or a "monitoring list."

The 12 trading partners on the Priority Watch List did not provide an adequate level of IPR protection or enforcement, or market access for those relying on intellectual property protection, the USTR office said.

Aside from China, Russia, Canada, Indonesia and Algeria, countries on this year's Priority Watch List are Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.

They will be the subject of particularly "intense engagement" through bilateral discussion during the coming year, the statement said.

Thirty-three trading partners were on the lower level Watch List, meriting what the USTR office called "bilateral attention to address the underlying IPR problems."

They comprised Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Paraguay will continue to be monitored under a bilateral memorandum of understanding that established objectives and actions for addressing IPR concerns in that country, the statement said.

[Al-khiyal]

Les Etats-Unis placent l’Algérie sur leur liste noire sur le copyright

Jeudi 30 Avril 2009 -- Les Etats-Unis ont annoncé jeudi avoir placé l'Algérie sur leur liste noire des pays protégeant mal les droits de propriété intellectuelle (copyright). Deux nouveaux pays ont rejoint sur cette liste : le Canada et l'Indonésie. La Corée du sud a été retirée de cette liste, qui compte désormais douze pays. Y sont restés l'Argentine, le Chili, la Chine, l'Inde, l'Indonésie, Israël, le Pakistan, la Russie et la Thaïlande. L'Algérie doit sa présence dans cette liste à "des inquiétudes croissantes quant à la situation du droit de la propriété intellectuelle dans ces pays", selon un communiqué les services du représentant américain au Commerce extérieur (USTR). Washington a par ailleurs rappelé que, d'après son rapport annuel sur le sujet, la Chine et la Russie avaient été les pays où ce droit était le moins respecté, "malgré quelques preuves d'une amélioration dans les deux pays". Le rapport a été critiqué par une coalition d'associations de défense du droit à la santé, qui ont vu ses conclusions comme attaquant exagérément les pays ayant adopté une protection faible des brevets de médicaments au profit de leur population, en particulier la Thaïlande. "Bien que s'étant engagés à respecter la flexibilité des droits intellectuels promue par l'Organisation mondiale du Commerce, qui veut encourager l'accès à des médicaments génériques à bas coûts, les Etats-Unis dénoncent régulièrement des pays pour leurs politiques de santé", ont affirmé dans un communiqué ces sept organisations, dont Oxfam et le Forum on Democracy and Trade.

[Al-khiyal]

Could piracy blacklist backfire?

May 5, 2009 -- Each April, the U.S. releases the Special 301 Report, which examines the intellectual property laws of its main trading partners.

The release generated international headlines last week as countries such as Canada and Israel found themselves on the "Priority Watch List" of countries that the U.S. claims are the world's worst piracy offenders.

In all, the U.S. targeted 46 countries. In addition to the usual suspects such as China and Russia, Europe came in for heavy criticism with Finland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland all on the Watch list.

The Report yielded predictable lobbyist support from groups such as the International Intellectual Property Alliance and the Motion Picture Association of America, who used the opportunity to chastise the countries on the list for failing to address their concerns.

Yet the lobby group victory may ultimately prove illusory. By wildly overstating its claims on many countries, the U.S. has undermined its credibility and confirmed criticisms that the report lacks reliability or objective analysis.

Rather than increasing the pressure for reforms, it seems more likely to be characterised as little more than a lobbyist document that is best ignored.

For example, in previous years, Canadian officials have done little more than express disappointment with the U.S. findings. According to government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs has been repeatedly advised that "Canada does not recognise the Special 301 process due to its lacking of reliable and objective analysis, and we have raised this issue regularly with the U.S. in our bilateral discussions."

Canada may move beyond behind-the-scenes discussions now that it finds itself on the Priority Watch List alongside China, Russia, and Indonesia. If so, it would likely remind the U.S. that it is compliant with its international copyright obligations. In recent years, it responded to U.S. pressure by becoming one of the few countries to enact anti-camcording legislation. Law enforcement has prioritised intellectual property cases and the law contains tough statutory damages provisions that are regularly used by rights holders to obtain significant judgments.

Moreover, grouping Canada together with high-piracy nations does not stand up to even mild scrutiny. The Business Software Alliance's 2008 statistics show that among the 11 other countries on this year's Priority Watch List for which data is available, the lowest rate of software piracy is 66%. By comparison, Canada stands at 32%, not remotely close to any other country on the list. In fact, Canada's software piracy rate is lower than all 46 countries named in the Special 301 report.

Similarly, 2008 data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency on intellectual property seizures reports that Taiwan and South Korea rank fourth and fifth as sources of seized goods (China is number one), yet both were dropped this year from the Watch List. By comparison, Canada does not even appear in the rankings.

Frustration with the list is not limited to Canada. Israel was one of twenty countries to submit briefs to the U.S. defending their laws and policies. The Israeli brief anticipated the criticism over the absence of anti-circumvention legislation, rules that provide legal protection for technological protection measures (TPMs).

It argued that "given the industry objections to TPM, lack of uniform implementation worldwide and its nascent obsolescence, non implementation of TPM can not be the basis for determining that a country, as in the words of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 USC 2242) 'denies adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection.'"

The U.S. ignored the argument (and its own law) and placed Israel on the Priority Watch list.

U.S. officials similarly dismissed Finland's and Italy's brief.

Given the U.S. relies heavily on the IIPA report in compiling its list, the lobby group's claims were also heavily criticised by many countries including Poland, Spain, and South Korea. For example, Spain stated that the "arbitrary conclusions are drawn in this report which on numerous occasions offends Spanish Government action."

The Special 301 Report does more than just anger U.S. allies. It also calls into question their ongoing support for U.S. international intellectual property policies such as the negotiation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the proceedings at the World Trade Organisation against China over its copyright rules.

In targeting so many countries with questionable findings, the U.S. has now sent a message that this support is not good enough. Copyright law may be in need of reform in many countries, but new laws should come on their terms and in their national interest, not as a result of misleading and inaccurate bully tactics.

[Al-khiyal]

Protection intellectuelle en Algérie :
Aucune plainte de l’OMPI

Dimanche 10 Mai 2009 -- Selon le directeur général de l'Institut national Algérien de la propriété industrielle (INAPI), Belkacem Ziani l'Algérie n'a pas reçu de plainte de l'Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI). "Nous n'avons reçu aucune réclamation de la part d'organismes officiels disant que les droits d'un déposant de marque ont été remis en cause", a déclaré M. Ziani à l'agence officielle APS. L'INAPI veille, selon lui, au respect des conventions et les traités internationaux sur la propriété intellectuelle. "Nous n'avons aucun intérêt à ce qu'on soit pointé du doigt", a-t-il soutenu.

Dernièrement, les services du représentant américain au commerce extérieur (USTR) ont ajouté l'Algérie à la liste noire des pays protégeant mal la propriété intellectuelle. Le responsable de l'INAPI a évité de répondre à une question relative à ce rapport préférant dire que la seule organisation à qui l'Algérie donne écho est l'OMPI. L'Algérie a-t-elle octroyé des autorisations de commercialisation à des copies de médicaments protégés par des brevets? "L'INAPI ne peut délivrer de titre de propriété d'un produit dont le brevet est protégé", a répondu Belkacem Ziani. L'INAPI, selon lui, ne protège des marques ou des brevets d'invention que s'ils sont enregistrés auprès de lui. Il a rappelé qu'aucun laboratoire pharmaceutique en Algérie ne pourra fabriquer de médicaments sans prendre les garanties légales et avoir obtenu l'autorisation de mise sur le marché (AMM), délivrée par le ministère de la Santé.

L'INAPI traite 800 demandes de brevet par an dont 80% sont des demandes de brevets de médicaments. En 2008, l'institut a délivré 5.299 titres de propriété industrielle (brevets, modèles, etc). Membre de l'OMPI, l'Algérie est signataire de l'Arrangement de Madrid relatif aux marques et du Traité de coopération relatif aux brevets (PCT).