DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - 2007 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW INPUT

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 000419

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EB/TPP/IPE - J. BOGER
STATE PASS USTR - J. CHOE-GROVES

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ETRD ECON KIPR DR
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - 2007 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW INPUT

REF: STATE 7944


1. (SBU) The Dominican government made a series of
modifications to its intellectual property laws in 2006 to
implement the country,s obligations under CAFTA-DR. Entry
into force of the free trade agreement is expected to occur
in early 2007 and will create additional pressure on the
government to honor its commitments under the agreement.
With the new legislation, the Patent Office is obligated to
work more closely with the Ministry of Health relative to
issuance of pharmaceutical patents and sanitation permits for
the production of new pharmaceutical products and
agricultural chemicals. There has been improved coordination
to stop television broadcast piracy among various government
agencies within the Dominican government, though broadcast
piracy remains a problem. While pirated music, video and
software are still readily available in the Dominican market,
the Dominican copyright office reports having confiscated
approximately the same amount of pirated material in 2006 as
it did during the previous year. Embassy recommends
maintaining the Dominican Republic on the Watch List.

Optical Media Piracy
--------------

2. (SBU) The Dominican copyright office carries out raids on
audiovisual reproduction facilities, and reported having
seized 444,550 copies of DVDs and CDs in 2006, similar to the
440,000 reported in 2005. The copyright office reported
that it carried out two countrywide operations working with
the national police in 2006 during which 57 street vendors of
pirated materials were arrested. In all, the copyright
office reported that it performed 31 raids in 2006 and that
it orchestrated a public destruction of confiscated materials
in July and another in January of 2007. The Attorney
General,s office reports having processed in conjunction
with the national police 84 cases of unlawful copying of
audiovisual materials.

CAFTA-DR Implementation
--------------


3. (U) To implement CAFTA-DR requirements, the Dominican
government passed legislation in November 2006 to strengthen
its IPR protection regime by, for example, requiring
authorities to seize, forfeit, and destroy counterfeit and
pirated goods and the equipment used to produce them. It
also passed extensive reforms to the industrial property law
of 2000, which, if enforced, will make it more difficult for
the copy industries of pharmaceuticals and agricultural
chemicals to thrive. CAFTA-DR mandates both statutory and
actual damages for copyright and trademark infringement,
measures that help ensure that monetary damages can be
awarded event when it is difficult to assign a monetary value
to the infringement.

Data Protection
--------------

4. (SBU) The CAFTA-DR requires that test data submitted to
the Dominican government for the purpose of product approval
be protected against unfair commercial use for a period of
five years for pharmaceuticals and ten years for agricultural
chemicals. Data protection discussions in 2006 during
implementation talks between the Dominican government and
USTR were protracted and difficult. The local copy industry
lobbied the Dominican government not to make the required
legislative changes and for several months the government was
unwilling to recognize its obligation to protect undisclosed
data. Faced, however, with the understanding that the
country would be unable to proceed with entry into force of
CAFTA-DR, the Dominican government finally passed legislation
to enforce data protection in November 2006.

Television Broadcast Piracy
--------------

5. (U) The Dominican government agreed in a side letter to
CAFTA-DR to improve its efforts to stop television broadcast
piracy. For the past two years the government has prepared
reports on steps being taken to combat broadcast piracy and
has generally submitted these quarterly to the Embassy and to
USTR. Telecommunications authority INDOTEL reported that in
July 2006 it carried out inspections of two cable companies
in the towns of Villa Isabella and Altamira in the northern
part of the country. These actions resulted in closure of
the facilities and provisional seizure of broadcasting
equipment for violation of the telecommunications law.

Enforcement
--------------

6. (SBU) An Attorney General's office representative
recently lamented that the National Police has very limited
experience and ability in the area of IP enforcement. The
Attorney General's office itself has made an effort to
increase IP issue awareness and skills among prosecutors (see
item on training, below). A prosecutor from a provincial
town told an Embassy officer recently that his office
emphasizes IP enforcement and that he has participated in
closing down pharmacies carrying violating products. He
said, however, that he operates with extremely limited
resources--he has no computer or cell phone--and that he
sometimes fears for his safety because of lack of support
from the police.

Treaties
--------------

7. (U) The WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances
and Phonograms Treaty entered into force for the Dominican
Republic on January 10, 2006.

Training
--------------

8. (U) In 2006 the Embassy sent prosecutors, judges, customs
and patent office officials to USPTO IPR enforcement training
in the United States. In February 2007, USPTO organized a
program with the office of the Dominican Attorney General to
provide IP enforcement training for 40 judges and prosecutors
in Santo Domingo. The Embassy is working with the U.S.
Department of Justice to host a working session with
Dominican IP enforcement officials to create a procedures
manual that will be distributed throughout the government.
The manual will explain how to carry out and prosecute IP
violations.
HERTELL