Page:Special 301 Report 2005.pdf/28

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pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical companies seeking market approval for their products against unfair commercial use. In addition, copyright piracy is rampant, and the U.S. copyright industry estimates that lost sales resulting from piracy in India of U.S. motion pictures, sound recordings, musical compositions, computer programs, and books totaled approximately $500 million in 2004. India is not a party to the WIPO Internet Treaties. We understand, however, that India is in the process of discussing amendments to the Indian Copyright Act which would enable India to implement these treaties. India has not adopted an optical disc law to address optical media piracy, and cable television piracy continues to be a significant problem. Although the Government of India has pledged to improve its trademark regime, protection of foreign trademarks remains difficult due to procedural barriers and delays. Areas in need of improvement include national treatment for the use of trademarks owned by foreign proprietors, statutory protection of service marks, and clarification of the conditions that justify the cancellation of a mark due to non-use. India's criminal IPR enforcement regime remains weak in multiple areas, including border protection against counterfeit and pirated goods, police action against pirates, following up raids by obtaining convictions for copyright and trademark infringement, courts reaching dispositions and imposing deterrent sentences, and delays in court dispositions. We hope that India will address these issues during the coming year and thereby strengthen its IPR regime.

INDONESIA
Indonesia will remain on the Priority Watch List for 2005, and the United States will conduct an out-of-cycle review to monitor Indonesia's progress on IPR issues. Indonesia took steps in 2004 to strengthen its IPR protection regime. Notably, Indonesia passed Optical Disc Regulations in 2004 that took effect in April 2005 and demonstrate Indonesia's commitment on paper to improving its IPR regime. The U.S. copyright and trademark industries report that serious concerns remain, however, over numerous issues, including: lack of effective IPR enforcement; the adequacy of the new regulations to reduce the production, distribution, and export of pirated optical media products; trademark infringement; and deficiencies in Indonesia's judicial system. Indonesia carried out some raids against retail outlets for pirate optical media products in 2004, but the U.S. copyright industry reported that enforcement and prosecution of IPR violations remained insufficient and non-deterrent. Pirate optical media products, including CDs, VCDs, DVDs and CD-ROMs, still dominate Indonesia's market. The U.S. copyright industry estimated losses in Indonesia of approximately $197.5 million in 2004. A number of companies continue to report trademark infringement involving a wide range of products, including information technology products, clothing, and soft drinks, among others. In addition to the out-of-cycle review, the United States will continue to use our bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) to work with Indonesia to take the additional measures necessary to develop and implement a robust and effective IPR regime.

ISRAEL
Over the last year, the United States and Israel engaged in extensive efforts to bridge differences on key IP issues. While progress was made in some areas, Israel's efforts to address its lack of protection against unfair commercial use for proprietary test data fell significantly short of responding to U.S. concerns. In March 2005, Israel's Knesset approved legislation on data protection, proposed by the Israeli Government, which fails to provide OECD-level protection against unfair commercial use for confidential test data submitted by innovator pharmaceutical