Special 301 Report
[4] U.S. companies and intellectual property owners, including copyrights, patents and trademarks, can submit complaints (i.e., a petition alleging that a country has violated an international agreement with the United States that adversely affects the company or industry) to the Trade Compliance Centre, which provides a template for such complaints, or the country or industry desk at the International Trade Administration (ITA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The complaint cannot be in relation to disputes between companies on intellectual property rights, but must be about instances where a country has violated an international agreement with the United States.
[7] According to Andres Guadamuz of the University of Edinburgh, the IIPA, which represents the U.S. media industry, urged the U.S. government to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil, and India for inclusion in the Special 301 Watchlist in early 2010 because they either mandated or suggested the use of open-source software.
[2][10][11] The Act defines "priority foreign countries" as: "those foreign countries - (A) that have the most onerous or egregious acts, policies, or practices that (i) deny adequate and effective intellectual property rights, or (ii) deny fair and equitable market access to United States persons that rely upon intellectual property protection, (B) whose acts, policies, or practices described in subparagraph (A) have the greatest adverse impact (actual or potential) on the relevant United States products, and (C) that are not (i) entering into good faith negotiations, or (ii) making significant progress in bilateral or multilateral negotiations to provide adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights".
[11] Reasons for extension include "substantial progress in drafting or implementing legislative or administrative measures that will provide adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights" by the "priority foreign country".
"Watch List" countries have been identified by the USTR as having "serious intellectual property rights deficiencies" but are not yet placed on the "Priority Watchlist".
[26] The USTR has used the Special 301 Reports to initiate formal dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization (WTO) if it believes a country does not comply with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
The countries against which the USTR intends to pursue dispute settlement proceedings are announced every April in the Special 301 Report.
[27] It protects and acts in favor of U.S. intellectual property owners, most often large corporations, against any foreign national policy or unofficial action that does not conform to the United States' position on international copyright and IP.
"[28] On the other hand, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), concerns about foreign IP policies that are overly restrictive, such as a lack of fair use in some countries, are not included in Special 301 reports.
[30] For example, Finland was blacklisted in retaliation to unanimously adopted legislation requiring the tax-funded Social Insurance Institution to reimburse the cost of medications only up to the price of the cheapest generic.
Intellectual property is not violated, as this affects all manufacturers equally; nevertheless, this retaliatory measure has had a negative impact on investment decisions unrelated to the pharmaceutical industry.
