Copycat crime
The only people surprised to see Taiwan included in the US Special 301 priority watch list are the Taiwanese. A US trade report last week kept Taiwan on its annual list of intellectual property rights offenders, a move that American diplomats on the island had hinted at months ago. Inclusion on the list is the second most severe category an economy can face, behind the 'priority foreign country' category.
A country at the top of the list is open to US trade sanctions: The Ukraine has been hit with millions of dollars in penalties as a result of US sanctions for intellectual property theft.
That experience does not bode well for Taiwan. According to the music industry lobby group, the International Federation of the Phonographics Industry, Taiwan is second behind Ukraine in the production of pirated music CDs. Taiwan was lucky not to be forced into the top category; that it was not dropped to a lower list is unlucky. Both scenarios were possible, since judging Taiwan's approach to stopping intellectual property theft is a tough task. The trade report's definition of infringement is broad.
Copying optical media such as CDs, VCDs and DVDs is among the most obvious. Other forms of intellectual property rights theft include patent infringement, such as copying another's designs or ideas. Trademark mimicking or false branding of goods, such as fake designer handbags, also fall into the category.
For Taiwan, however, optical media piracy is the main problem. The reason Taiwan stayed where it was on the US list comes down to its attitude to the problem. Even the harshest critics would not deny the incredible turnaround in the approach to, and understanding of, US concerns about piracy from three years ago, when rampant copying saw the island return to the priority watch list. Last year was declared the year of intellectual property rights enforcement by the Taiwan government, and a raft of laws went to the legislature to tackle the issue.
But Taiwan was not moved to a lower category because of its failure to follow through. 'These positive steps have not produced results, and piracy and counterfeiting levels remain unacceptably high,' the report said. Both the US government's American Institute in Taiwan and the non-governmental American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei have met officials and discussed what can be done. There has been no lack of comment from the Americans. The issue has been talked about in speeches, mentioned in many papers and widely covered in the local and international media.
The comment by Taiwan's Board of Foreign Trade director-general Huang Chih-peng was, therefore, somewhat baffling. 'In the future, we hope that the United States will offer more information to facilitate our campaign against commercial piracy,' he said.
If Mr Huang and his colleagues were surprised about the priority watch listing, then they are on their own.
