Argentina's Customs Agency: A Bright Spot on IPR and

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BUENOS AIRES 001302 EB/TPP/IPE FOR RWATTS, RWALLACE AND CLACROSSE DEPT PLS PASS TO USTR JCGROVES, KDUCKWORTH DOC/ITA/MAC/OIPR FOR CATHERINE PETERS AND JENNIFER BOGER SAO PAULO FOR USPTO DMAZURKEVICH SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KIPR ECON PREL ETRD AR SUBJECT: Argentina's Customs Agency: A Bright Spot on IPR and Cooperation REF: Buenos Aires 231 -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Argentina's Customs Director Silvina Tiribassi spoke on September 12 with Ambassador about her agency's efforts to protect intellectual property and encouraged additional information-sharing initiatives with the USG on the model of the successful Trade Transparency Unit and Container Security Initiative. On intellectual property, Customs has seized more counterfeit goods so far in 2008 than in all of 2007, but remains constrained by law from detaining goods that may violate patents. End Summary. -------------- -------------- Intellectual Property - Trademarks Better, not Patents -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Customs Director Silvina Tirabassi, in a September 12 meeting with the Ambassador, spoke of her recent trip to Washington to attend a week-long course on the Container Security Initiative (CSI). She noted that she also paid visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Canine Training Center, and toured the Department of Homeland Security's recently inaugurated National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. She mentioned that the latter had offered to explore training exchanges with Argentine Customs in the future. Tirabassi commented that she has approved the posting of an Argentine Customs employee to the Port of Miami in November to serve as a liaison between ICE, CBP, and Argentine Customs for case coordination, investigative leads and information sharing. This agreement is allowable as a reciprocal consideration under the CSI program, and by existing Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements. Ambassador congratulated Tirabassi for her agency's 18-month old Trademark Fraud program (Reftel) which had already seized more value in counterfeit goods in 2008 to date than in all of 2007. ¶3. (SBU) Ambassador asked about the status of a pending law on border measures, which was passed into law in 2004 but never implemented with regulations (Reftel). Tirabassi called the Trademark Fraud program a first step in that law's application. She said that the GoA still has not yet been able to coordinate among interested government agencies on how to deal with potential import and export patent infringements and therefore Customs can do nothing to prevent imports and exports of patent-infringing goods. She commented that, unlike with copyright and trademark violations, a determination of patent infringement requires a judicial order, and the legal issues of how to obtain that while awaiting Customs clearance are unclear and still need to be resolved. -------------- Integration; Diplomatic Vehicle Problems -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Tirabassi emphasized in several areas the value of greater integration and information-sharing with the U.S., other countries, and multilaterally. She praised the U.S.-Argentina Trade Transparency Unit, which exchanges import and export data in order to identify tariff evasion. She also expressed her appreciation to the CBP for sending an employee to Argentina in August, to ensure that exchanged data was even more up-to-date than before. She added that her agency would sign a cooperation agreement with China the next week, and was negotiating another with Canada. Multilaterally, she mentioned that she has been Vice President for the Americas in the World Customs Organization since June, where integration efforts have increased considerably since (and because of) the 9/11 terrorist attacks. ¶5. (SBU) Ambassador also raised the issue of difficulties in obtaining clearances for Mission personnel to import their cars, noting that there was no clear list of which vehicles were permitted entry and which were not. Tiribassi expressed surprise at this, saying that she believed the Secretary of Industry (in the Ministry of Economy) would have that list. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Argentina remains on USTR's Special 301 Priority Watch List due to a variety of deficiencies in intellectual property protection. The Customs agency's efforts, especially with respect to actively operating a Trademark Fraud program and successfully intercepting substantial amounts of counterfeit goods, marks a bright spot of IP protection in Argentina. WAYNE