US invites reports on China’s compliance with IPR rules

14 December 2004 16:38  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (CNI)--US trade officials Tuesday invited companies to report whether China is taking sufficient action to protect the intellectual property rights (IPR) of foreign firms doing business in China.

 

The office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said today it is inviting written comments from US companies regarding China’s compliance with its earlier promises to “significantly reduce IPR infringement.”

 

China already is on a USTR “watch list” and has been designated a “Priority Foreign Country” (PFC) under US trade laws, a designation used for nations that fail to provide “adequate and effective protection” for IPR. China was named a PFC in 1994 and has remained on that watch list since.

 

In April this year, the USTR noted, the US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) drew up a list of specific steps that the Beijing government was to take “toward China’s goal of significantly reducing IPR infringement.”

 

USTR said it will be conducting in early 2005 an assessment of “China’s actions to implement effectively the commitments it undertook under the JCCT, its WTO [World Trade Organization] commitments and the 1995 bilateral intellectual property agreement with the US, including additional commitments made in 1996.”

 

“The direct input of US IPR leaders and participants in China’s markets,” said USTR, “is critical to USTR’s ability to thoroughly evaluate China’s progress.” USTR said it is seeking information “regarding both successes and failures” in China’s IPR efforts since January 2002.

 

The USTR is seeking a range of detailed information about piracy, counterfeiting and other forms of IPR infringement. Full details on the USTR request for information can be obtained on the USTR Web site at: http://www.ustr.gov. The deadline for submitting information is 31 January.

 

US chemicals manufacturers are among a broad range of US companies who have complained of wide scale piracy and counterfeiting in China. One US chemical company complained that after it built a production facility in China, Chinese business people built an exact duplicate facility and also pirated the US firm’s process technology to go into direct competition against the US firm - without punitive action by the Chinese government.

 

China is under mounting pressure to establish solid IPR protections as it faces a year-end 2006 deadline to meet a variety of trade standards in order to gain admission to the WTO.

By: Joe Kamalick
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