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deficiencies are already the subject of section 301 investigations, the USTR will not initiate new investigations under Special 301.
PRIORITY WATCH LIST
Countries whose acts, policies and practices meet some, but not all, of the criteria for priority foreign country identification have been placed on the Priority Watch List. Their lack of adequate and effective intellectual property protection and/or their denial of market access for U.S. goods relying on this protection are of great concern to the Administration. Accordingly, the Administration will continue to work actively to resolve these problems and will monitor closely the situations in these countries to determine if any further action under Special 301 is warranted.
The following three countries have been placed or retained on the Priority Watch List:
| Brazil European Community Australia |
Brazil was placed on the Priority Watch List in 1989 for serious deficiencies in its patent law, including failure to provide process or product patent protection for chemicals, foodstuffs, and pharmaceuticals. A new law providing this protection is scheduled to be introduced in the Brazilian Parliament shortly and the U.S. Government will be reviewing this proposed legislation carefully. In addition, losses from piracy in the video and computer software areas are significant. Although market access restrictions on computer software continue in place, there has been improvement. Furthermore, the Brazilian Government has introduced legislation that will remedy some of the problems.
The European Community was placed on the Priority Watch List for market access restrictions that limit U.S. audiovisual exports. The EC Broadcast Directive, adopted in October 1989, directs EC member states to ensure "where practicable" that TV broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works. The Directive takes effect on October 3, 1991. Various member states have already begun enacting broadcast quotas (France -- 60% of programming must be European, and after January 1, 1992, 60% of prime-time programming must be European; Italy -- 40% of televised feature films on independent channels must be European, rising to 51% by 1994; UK -- a majority of programming time on independent channels must be European - informal BBC guidelines are even stricter; Spain -- 40% of programming must be produced in the EC; Portugal -- majority of broadcast time must be European;).
