Ecuador makes positive progress on US piracy blacklist


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Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 03 May 2016




The US report on intellectual property and piracy includes three Latin American countries on its priority watch list, but Ecuador’s position has improved since last year.



special 301The Special 301 Report released by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on the global state of intellectual property rights protection includes Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine and Algeria in the priority list as giving “the most significant concerns regarding insufficient rights protection”. These countries will be the subject of particularly intense bilateral engagement during the coming year.

Last year, Ecuador was also included in this piracy blacklist, but it has now been placed in the second priority group, along with Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru.

“Ecuador reinstated criminal procedures and penalties for commercial scale counterfeiting and piracy which was the basis for downgrading Ecuador to the Priority Watch List in 2015,” explains the report.

The USTR also announced it will conduct an out-of-cycle review (OCR) of Colombia, Spain, Tajikistan and Pakistan, to “encourage progress on IPR issues of concern”.