USTR Publishes 2023 Special 301 Report
May 2, 2023
On April 26th, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published its Special 301 Report for 2023, highlighting the variety and severity of challenges faced by intellectual property owners in jurisdictions around the world.
Each year, USTR – in coordination with partner agencies from across the Executive Branch – seeks to identify countries that fail to provide adequate or effective protection of IP rights, or that have imposed market access barriers that adversely impact American rights-holders.
This year’s report included a total of 29 countries:
- 7 were placed on USTR’s Priority Watch List – designating jurisdictions with the most significant concerns. These included: Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Venezuela.
- An additional 22 countries – Algeria, Barbados, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam – were placed on the Special 301 Watch List.
27 of the 29 countries identified in this year’s report also appeared in last year’s report. Belarus and Bulgaria were the sole additions. The report underscored the continuing concerns over IP protection across Latin America and the Caribbean; nearly half of the countries included on the list are located in those regions.
The IACC was pleased to see that USTR’s final determinations were largely consistent with the recommendations[include link to our recommendations] we made in January of this year; 18 of the 24 countries nominated by the IACC (including 4 of our 6 Priority Watch List recommendations) were included in USTR’s final report
The full text of USTR’s report is available here.