Despite changes to patent, copyright and criminal law, China remains one of the top countries the U.S. is targeting for weak intellectual property protections, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Friday in its annual special 301 report (see 2004290059). China needs to strengthen such protection and enforcement, fully implement IP measures, stop forcing technology transfers to Chinese companies, open its market to foreign investment, and “allow the market a decisive role in allocating resources,” USTR said. “Severe challenges persist because of excessive regulatory requirements and informal pressure and coercion to transfer technology to Chinese companies, continued gaps in the scope of IP protection, incomplete legal reforms, weak enforcement channels, and lack of administrative and judicial transparency and independence.”
CommScope hires Anixter International’s Justin Choi, also former Avaya and Lucent Technologies, as chief legal officer to succeed Burk Wyatt, retiring June 1 ... Digital intelligence platform Netenrich hires Vectra AI’s Christopher Morales chief information security officer and head-security strategy ... CBS announces Neeraj Khemlani, from Hearst, and Wendy McMahon, ex-ABC Owned Television Stations Group, as presidents and co-heads of newly formed division that combines CBS News' and the CBS Television Stations' journalistic and business resources into one divisional and leadership structure.
Trade policy on China should prioritize technology issues and set “benchmarks" for a "phased rollback" of Trade Act Section 301 tariffs, the Information Technology Industry Council wrote new U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai Tuesday. It encouraged Tai to "move swiftly" on the commitment she made at her Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing to install "a transparent, predictable, and rapid process for tariff exclusions.” Reforming the tariff exclusions process would be "very high on my radar" if confirmed, Tai told the committee (see 2102250043). Noting USTR has investigated the digital services taxes policies of several U.S. trade partners, the group asked the agency “to discourage further proliferation of such measures.” USTR didn't comment Wednesday, and ITI didn't answer our queries about whether it got a response from the agency. The Chinese tariffs are “there to be punitive,” rather than to stop China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, ITI CEO Jason Oxman told us in January (see 2011090043).
Tech and creative industries universally hailed Senate confirmation Wednesday of China and trade expert Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative by a 98-0 vote. Tai inherits the USTR post as three rounds of tariffs on Chinese goods remain at 25%, over the concerns of tech and telecom stakeholders. Overhauling the tariff exclusions to give the process more “transparency and predictability” would be “very high on my radar,” Tai told her Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing Feb. 25. The levies “disrupted a lot of people’s lives and livelihoods,” she said. BSA|The Software Alliance urges Tai to “promote digital trade policies that facilitate the responsible transfer of data across borders,” said CEO Victoria Espinel. During Tai’s time as lead trade counsel for House Ways and Means, she played “an instrumental role” in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, said TechNet: USMCA “included strong intellectual property protections and a landmark digital chapter that eliminated digital trade barriers and enhanced trade.” MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said Tai “fully appreciates that securing robust copyright protections overseas is fundamental to developing a worker-centric trade policy.” CTA (here), the Information Technology Industry Council (here), the Telecommunications Industry Association (here) and others also commented.
The Senate Finance Committee approved by unanimous voice vote Wednesday the nomination of Katherine Tai as U.S. trade representative. Tai appeared to have broad bipartisan backing at her Feb. 25 confirmation hearing (see 2102250043).
BakerHostetler hires broadcast lawyer Daniel Kirkpatrick from Fletcher Heald as partner, and broadcast, inmate calling service and broadband attorney Davina Sashkin as counsel; Fletcher Heald partner Tony Lee replaces Kirkpatrick as that firm's co-managing partner ... Microsoft hires C.J. Mahoney from Office of U.S. Trade Representative as deputy general counsel-U.S. international trade and Azure cloud computing service.
Engine's board promotes Kate Tummarello, ex-Communications Daily, to executive director ... Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law resigns from Facebook’s independent oversight board to join DOJ Civil Rights Division as principal deputy assistant attorney general ... Qumu hires Gigster’s Jennifer Pockell Dimas as chief marketing officer ... Payment tech company Blackhawk Network taps Nikhil Sathe from American Express, also ex-PayPal, as chief technology officer.
Intel invested $475 million in its Vietnamese subsidiary, in addition to the $1 billion it spent more than a decade ago to build a chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City, it blogged Tuesday. Intel Products Vietnam shipped more than 2 billion units of components to customers globally through the end of 2020, it said. It’s the largest U.S. tech investment in Vietnam, it said. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under the Trump administration found Vietnam’s allegedly improper devaluation of the dong against the dollar actionable under the Trade Act Section 301, leaving it to the next USTR to decide whether to impose tariffs on Hanoi (see 2101150052).
Leaving the FCC is Evan Swarztrauber, policy adviser to former Chairman Ajit Pai, whose last day was Wednesday; among others leaving agency after Pai's departure are spokesperson Brian Hart ... President Joe Biden names acting agency leaders including at Department of Homeland Security, David Pekoske; DOJ, Monty Wilkinson (also see below in this section for more on the department); NASA, Steve Jurczyk; OMB, Rob Fairweather; Office of Personnel Management, Kathy McGettigan; Small Business Administration, Tami Perriello; and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Maria Pagan.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual report on "notorious" world markets for counterfeit and pirated goods included for the first time a section exposing the growing role of e-commerce platforms in the import of such goods into the U.S. “The greatest risk of importation of counterfeit and pirated goods, harming both U.S. content creators and U.S. consumers, is posed not by foreign flea markets and dark web sites but by inadequate policies and inadequate action by e-commerce companies that market and sell foreign products to American consumers,” said USTR Thursday. “Combating piracy and counterfeits will require sustained effort by both the federal government and by companies that profit from the sale of such goods.” USTR removed Amazon's Canada and India affiliates from the notorious markets list this year, retained the British, German and French sites, and added Amazon's Italian and Spanish sites. The report praised Amazon for partnering with the federal government's National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center on a joint operation to prevent the import of counterfeit goods into the U.S. When Amazon was first identified as a notorious market, it said the listing was politically motivated. Amazon didn't respond to questions Friday. Online sellers of pirated and counterfeit goods are shifting increasingly to social media to carry out their crimes, said USTR.