HONDURAS: WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATIES ARE IN EFFECT

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 001689

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EB/IPC: Susan Wilson

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KIPR ECON ETRD HO
SUBJECT: HONDURAS: WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATIES ARE IN EFFECT

REF: STATE 174496


1. On July 10 EconOff delivered reftel demarche to
Marvin Discua, head of the GOH's Intellectual Property
Rights office. Discua confirmed that Honduras became
party to both the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO
Performances and Phonograms Treaty on May 20, 2002. He
further explained that under Honduran law, such treaties
are self-executing, and that no additions or changes to
national law are necessary for the treaties to acquire
the full force of law. While in some cases the GOH will
write rules to provide for the clear implementation of a
treaty, Discua stated that, in his opinion, the WCT and
WPPT were already sufficiently clear, and writing an
additional layer of rules was not necessary. He said
that there have been no problems with the implementation
of the treaties.


2. Comment: Post has received no complaints from U.S.
companies operating in Honduras pertaining to the issues
covered by the two treaties. EconOff forwarded reftel's
recommendation that `self-execution' of the treaties
should be considered insufficient, but Discua made clear
that the GOH does not believe there is further
legislative work to be done on this issue. End comment.

PALMER