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How the US Lost Its China Complaint On IP
An anonymous reader writes "The World Trade Organization yesterday released its much-anticipated decision involving a US complaint against China over its protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. The US quickly proclaimed victory, with newspaper headlines trumpeting the WTO panel's requirement that China reform elements of its intellectual property laws. Yet the reality is somewhat different. As Michael Geist notes, the US lost badly on key issues such as border measures and criminal IP enforcement, with the international trade body upholding the validity of China's laws."
why bother about their laws being implemented outside US borders?
This is not about US laws being upheld on foreign soil. It's about two very specific international contracts between China, the US and many other countries. The two agreements in question are the Bern Convention and TRIPS. These are agreements the US and China both entered into voluntarily.
The decision basically states that china is not fully compliant with the Bern Convention, but they are within the letter of the TRIPS agreement.
Sometimes it not about the US trying to throw it's weight around, because sometimes countries have agreements they have to uphold just like individuals within a country.
This is not about US laws being upheld on foreign soil. It's about two very specific international contracts between China, the US and many other countries. The two agreements in question are the Bern Convention and TRIPS.
From the TRIPS wikipedia link:
TRIPS was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994. Its inclusion was the culmination of a program of intense lobbying by the United States, supported by the European Union, Japan and other developed nations.
From the Bern Convention wikipedia link:
The United States initially refused to become party to the Convention since it would have required major changes in its copyright law, particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of general requirement for registration of copyright works and elimination of mandatory copyright notice. This led to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1952 [as an alternative to the Berne Convention] to accommodate the wishes of the United States. But on March 1, 1989, in the U.S. "Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party to the Berne Convention, making the Universal Copyright Convention obsolete.
The USA has always had a strong policy of exporting and forcing shitty laws (on)to other countries.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
IPKat has a very nice analysis, as usual, here:
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2009/01/breaking-news-wto-panel-report-on-us.html.
However, IPKat concludes that it's more of a score-draw than a loss by the US.