JORDAN IPR UPDATE: SOME PROGRESS IN REVISING LAWS AND

UNCLAS AMMAN 000946

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON ETRD KIPR SNAR JO
SUBJECT: JORDAN IPR UPDATE: SOME PROGRESS IN REVISING LAWS AND
STEADY ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS

REFS: A) AMMAN 20
B) 08 AMMAN 2420


1. (SBU) Summary: The Government of Jordan has continued its efforts
to strengthen protection of intellectual property rights (IPR).
Jordan's revised Copyright Law, updated to bring it into full
compliance with the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA),has
passed the Legislative and Opinion Bureau (LOB) review and will next
move to the Cabinet before being submitted to Parliament. The
revised Customs Law which will give officials ex officio authority
to seize goods and initiate criminal proceedings was recently
submitted to the LOB. The National Library has focused efforts on
raids against electronics used to decode copyrighted material and
has referred its first case of mobile phone piracy to the courts.
Still, observers would like to see court sentencing strengthened for
IPR cases. The Jordan Food and Drug Administration says that
smuggled drugs are now a larger problem than counterfeit drugs and a
new hospital automation pilot project to better manage inventory
seeks to prevent theft of medicines for resale. The Public Security
Directorate foiled a $14 million drug-smuggling attempt in March.
End Summary.

Two IPR Laws Move One Step Forward
--------------


2. (SBU) National Library (NL) Director General Mahmoun Talhouni
told EmbOffs on April 7 that the Legislative and Opinion Bureau
reviewed amendments to the Copyright Law that would to bring it into
full compliance with the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Among the changes are amendments which clarified distinctions
between ownership, authorship and subsistence; and prohibited the
creation of anthologies of copyrighted works as textbooks (ref B).
In the end, final revisions requested by LOB were modest, but
required extensive discussions because of their technical nature.
Talhouni said the law must now be reviewed by the Cabinet. He was
hopeful that the law would pass through Parliament relatively
unchanged and commented that one of his strongest advocates is an
Islamist Member of Parliament who is the author of two books.


3. (SBU) Dr. Mohammed Alrhahleh, Regional Manager of the Arab
Federation for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AFPIP),
which is working closely with Jordan Customs (JC),told EconOffs on
April 7 that the amendments to the Customs Law had been finalized
within JC and had been forwarded to the LOB for review. He said the
most important change is the inclusion of Article 41 which will give
customs officers ex officio authority to seize goods and initiative
criminal proceedings. He added AFPIP will be hosting a training
session for customs officials in Aqaba on May 19 focused on
enforcement.

Government Reasserts Mandate to Use Legal Software
-------------- --------------


4. (SBU) On March 9, the Prime Minister sent an annual letter to all
ministries notifying them that all software used by the government
must be licensed and not pirated in order for Jordan to be in
compliance with its international treaties and bilateral agreements.
Hazem Malhas, CEO of Optimiza, Jordan's largest Information
Technology (IT) company, said that IPR compliance is better for
software than for other copyright categories, particularly DVDs and
music. Providing a software example, he said that while it was once
common for Jordanian architects to use pirated AutoCAD software,
this practice was now increasingly rare. He said Microsoft and
Oracle have sponsored innumerable IPR seminars for government and
businesses to increase awareness of the need to use legal copies to
ensure quality and updates, as well as to be in compliance with the
law.

National Library's Recent Focus on Electronics
-------------- -


5. (SBU) Talhouni explained that Article 55 of the current Copyright
Law bans the decoding of equipment or the import of equipment
designed to decode copyrighted materials. He said that a recent NL
raid resulted in the seizure of 187 satellite boxes used to pirate
satellite television feeds. He said that at this point no store
owner dares to put these devices on the shelf, but they remain

available, often kept in back rooms. He said the majority of the
devices are smuggled from Dubai hidden as spare parts to other
equipment.


6. (SBU) The National Library also recently conducted a raid with
the General Intelligence Department (GID) on a web-based pirated DVD
service that allowed customers to order pirated DVDs online or via
phone that were later delivered to the customers' homes. NL also
recently seized a computer being used to decode Apple iPhones so
that the phones could be used with mobile phone service providers
other than the lone authorized company. This iPhone case has been
referred to the courts and is the first Jordanian case of mobile
phone piracy.

Criticism of Courts' Role in Enforcement
--------------


7. (SBU) Talhouni added that sentencing in Jordan needs to get
stricter. He said that sentencing done by the first instance courts
has improved with additional judges focusing on IPR, more judges
taking IPR training and the establishment of a specialized IPR
court. He added, however, that the first appeals court is not yet
specialized and too often overturns IPR cases. Alrhahleh agreed
that the frequency of appeals is too high and said that the move
away from arbitration proposed in the new Customs Law would
exacerbate the problem since arbitration decisions are not
appealable. Talhouni further criticized the Jordanian law which
allows defendants to pay a $127 fine in lieu of serving jail
sentences of less than three months. Talhouni is most eager for
legal changes that would ease the process of permanently closing
stores selling pirated goods. He believes store closure is a better
deterrent than fines or jail sentences. He says there are 25 stores
in Jordan that he believes should be permanently closed.

Efforts to Fight Counterfeit and Smuggled Drugs
-------------- --


8. (SBU) Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA) Director General
Dr. Mohammed Rawashdeh said that multiple years of on-going raids on
pharmacies have reduced the prevalence of counterfeit drugs in
Jordan. He reported that while the total number of raids has
increased, the number of pharmacies closed for violations fell from
171 in 2007 to approximately 60 in 2008 because fewer counterfeit
drugs were found. He noted the number of pharmacies convicted of
selling counterfeit medicine fell from 63 in 2007 to 13 in 2008. He
expects similar low numbers in 2009. He said that JFDA raids are
now conducted until midnight and not just during business hours.


9. (SBU) Rawashdeh commented the amount of smuggled and stolen
drugs, however, remains high with the majority of the latter being
stolen from the Ministry of Health's public hospitals and later
re-sold in private pharmacies. Ministry of Information and
Communications Technology (MOICT) Secretary General Bashar Bashaireh
said his ministry has launched a pilot project to improve hospital
electronic record-keeping. Project manager Steve Stratton of Perot
Systems predicts that the greatest cost savings from this automation
project will come from improved inventory management of medicines
and reduced theft and re-selling.


10. Public Security Department (PSD) officials announced that they
had foiled an attempt to smuggle 3.5 million counterfeit Captagon
pills worth $14 million out of the country. NOTE: Captagon is the
brand name of fenethylline, a banned synthetic drug used as a
stimulant. END NOTE. Four Jordanians were arrested on March 23 for
producing counterfeit versions of the legal drug and storing these
pills in order to smuggle them abroad. The suspects are now in
custody and the case has been turned over to the State Security
Court for prosecution. In January, Jordan Customs also stopped an
attempt to smuggle 39 kilograms of Captagon at one of the Syria
border points. Jordan is primarily viewed as a drug transit point
and is not a large consumer or producer country (ref A).

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