US official warns of quick sanctions if talks on copyright violations fail
THE United States will not hesitate to proceed with sanctions on Chinese goods if renewed talks on China's intellectual property rights (IPR) violations - due to start tomorrow - fail to reach an agreement, a senior US official said yesterday.
The talks are expected to conclude on Friday.
The US has extended a six-month investigation into China's violation of IPR under the Special 301 section of the US Trade Law to February 4.
'It is our hope that we will be able to reach an agreement with China before that time,' the official said.
'If no new agreement is reached, however, Ambassador Mickey Kantor will not hesitate to order publication of a final retaliation list on February 4. That list will go into effect shortly thereafter.' On the state of negotiations, he said the gap between China and the United States had narrowed following a new proposal China made following the last round of talks in December.
'That proposal marks a clear step forward and has narrowed the gap between the US and Chinese positions,' he said.
'While we have established a commonality of interests on a number of key issues, we are still far apart on the details.
'In the details is where the devil lies,' he said.
He said whether an agreement was reached or not was up to China.
China had not made any serious changes to its IPR enforcement regime including changes in the IPR court system that would allow unimpeded access for right holders whose work has been infringed, he said.
While the mainland has asked US companies to use the courts, it has placed barriers to effective prosecution of IPR pirates which only the wealthiest US companies can overcome.
'We cannot tolerate a system that insists on huge filing fees for initiation of civil cases - fees that have reached US$18,000 and above for a single case,' he said.
He said there was a case where the lawyers of a US firm were asked to bring the filing fee in US dollars in a suitcase to the judge.
'I'm not sure why renminbi, the national currency is not acceptable,' he said.
The US will be asking for a reasonable fixed filing fee so that US companies can have access to Chinese courts, he said. In the US, companies paid $175 to file a civil IPR court case, he said.
He said that under Chinese law, the maximum fine for IPR infringement was 100,000 yuan (about HK$90,000).
'In a market as huge and developing as rapidly as China, the damage produced [by piracy] is huge and far bigger than that amount,' he said.
On whether the US public would suffer if sanctions were imposed, he said: 'I don't think the public will be inconvenienced. 'The products on the list can be sourced from a variety of countries.'
