YEAR 2005 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW - JORDAN

UNCLAS AMMAN 001701

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR NEA/ELA
STATE ALSO FOR EB/IPE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KIPR ECON ETRD JO
SUBJECT: YEAR 2005 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW - JORDAN

REF: A. AMMAN 01697


B. STATE 24592

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. FOR USG USE ONLY. NOT
FOR RELEASE ON THE INTERNET.

(SBU) Ref (A) outlines recent activities in Jordan
regarding intellectual property rights, from passage of
new, FTA-compliant copyright law amendments, to
training in IPR enforcement. Overall, post believes
the GOJ is showing a strong commitment to IPR in many
of the areas outlined in ref (B). Although by no means
a perfect exemplar of IPR enforcement - Playstation
games and pirated DVDs are still available from
small-scale street hawkers in urban areas -- Jordan is
constantly improving, and working with private,
licensed distributors to suppress the illegal trade.
Post's comments on the areas of review listed in ref
(B) follow:

A) Optical Media Piracy: Jordan, as a major transit
trading economy, is the site of some transited pirated
optical media but not a significant location for their
production.

B) Use/Procurement of Government Software: The
Jordanian Government is dedicated to stamping out what
was previously a fairly common activity -- the use of
software on multiple stations in government agencies.
In April-May 2004, the Prime Minister issued a decree
reminding government departments that all software used
on GOJ computers should be properly licensed. This was
followed by a publicity campaign.

C) TRIPS Compliance

1) Amendments to existing legislation: as reported ref
(A),the GOJ recently passed a series of amendments to
the copyright law to bring it closely into conformity
with the GOJ's commitments under the bilateral Free
Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. The GOJ is
currently reviewing laws and regulations regarding
patents and trademarks, especially as they relate to
international conventions.

2) and 3) We have no evidence of new efforts to enact
new IP-related legislation, given that Jordan has
revamped over 200 laws in the last six years, with a
special effort to conform with WTO requirements,
including Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property (TRIPS) obligations. However, a committee in
the Jordan Food and Drug Administration is currently
working on regulations that will clarify ongoing
practices of data exclusivity protections for
pharmaceuticals; to date, the proposed regulations
have explicitly referred to FTA obligations for data
protection.

As the Special 301 report for 2004 indicated, Jordan in
the first half of 2004 became a party to the 1996 WIPO
Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms
Treaty.

Per ref (B),post has alerted the government of Jordan
to the ongoing Special 301 review.
HALE