Another 12 countries, including China and Russia, were put on a "priority watch list," indicating that intellectual property rights violations in those countries have reached serious proportions.

In its annual "Special 301 Report" released Monday, the USTR praised Korea for having agreed in the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement to step up protection of intellectual property rights, but it also said Korea will remain on the watch list for this year. Since 1989 the U.S. has classified countries into three categories based upon how seriously they enforce intellectual property rights: a "priority foreign country" list, the priority watch list, and the watch list or "Section 306 monitoring list."

In May 1989, Korea was placed on the priority watch list, but in November of that year it was lowered to the watch list along with Taiwan. Korea was again placed on the priority watch list in January 2004 but moved to the watch list the following year.

The USTR named 12 countries -- China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela -- as the worst violators of American intellectual property rights. The USTR was especially concerned about China's violations of intellectual property and trademark rights.

On Russia, the USTR said, "The coming months will be a critical period, as Russia moves to implement a variety of legal and law enforcement improvements to which it committed as part of a bilateral agreement with the United States on Russia's eventual accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO)."

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said, "We must defend ideas, inventions and creativity from rip off artists and thieves."

(englishnews@chosun.com )