U.S. and Taiwan (2008)
2008 Special 301 Report
Office of the United States Trade Representative
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Positive Developments
Several countries made significant positive progress on IPR protection and enforcement in 2007. For example, Russia has increased penalties for copyright crimes and stepped up action against unlicensed optical disc plants. China has made progress on implementation of measures to reduce end-user software piracy and agreed to strengthen enforcement against company name misuse. In Taiwan, prosecutions for business software piracy have increased, and Taiwan passed legislation making illegal and subjecting to civil and criminal liability services that intentionally facilitate peer-to peer file sharing. Seizures of counterfeit pharmaceuticals have increased in Indonesia and Nigeria. India has approved initiating action for accession to the Madrid Protocol. China and Australia joined the two key World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties for copyright protection. Malaysia launched a new intellectual property (IP) Court, consisting of 15 sessions courts and 6 high courts. Vietnam has taken actions to address the problem of signal piracy. The country sections of this Report describe numerous other positive developments.
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Government Use of Software
Under an Executive Order issued in October 1998, United States Government agencies maintain appropriate and effective procedures to ensure the authorized and legitimate use of business software. Pursuant to the same directive, USTR has undertaken an initiative to work with other governments, particularly in countries that are modernizing their software management systems or where concerns have been raised, to stop governmental use of unauthorized or illegal software.
Considerable progress has been made under this initiative. In 2006, APEC economies agreed that central government agencies should use only legal software and other copyrighted materials and should implement effective policies intended to prevent copyright infringement on their computer systems and via the Internet. Numerous countries and territories have mandated that only authorized, legitimate software may be used by government ministries. Some countries that have enacted such decrees or are in the process of implementing them include Bolivia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Lebanon, Macau, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, among others. The United States commends these governments for setting a positive example and expects these measures to be fully implemented. The United States looks forward to the adoption by other governments of effective and transparent procedures to ensure legitimate use of software.
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WATCH LIST
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TAIWAN
An Out-of-Cycle Review will be initiated in the immediate future and completed this summer to monitor progress on selected outstanding issues to consider whether Taiwan should be removed from the Watch List. Progress by Taiwan on improving its IPR regime this past year includes the June passage by the Legislative Yuan (LY) of a new law aimed at ending illegal file-sharing over peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms, which enabled officials to shut down some of the worst violators; continued efforts to establish an IP section at the Special Prosecutor's Office; and creation and issuance in October 2007 of the Action Plan for Protecting IP Rights on School Campuses. The United States urges Taiwan to make the specialized IPR Court operational as soon as possible. The United States urges Taiwan to continue to implement the 2007 Campus Action Plan, continue its efforts to combat counterfeiting and Internet piracy, and to work closely with the LY to pass pending IPR legislation regarding liability of Internet service providers for copyright infringements. The United States asks that Taiwan continue to take effective action against piracy on the Internet, especially on TANet, the Internet service provider administered by Taiwan's Ministry of Education, and against the unauthorized use of copyrighted material on or near universities.
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Key Government Documents
U.S. and Taiwan
