VZCZCXYZ0005
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #0419/01 0581643
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 271643Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7504
INFO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7505

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