The US government announced its US Special 301 review last week,
and perhaps the most interesting question is whether President
Donald Trump's US protectionist policies and provocation of
trade disputes suggests any change in the Special 301 approach. The
purpose of the Special 301 review is to identify US trading
partners that do not adequately or effectively protect and enforce
IP rights or otherwise deny market access to U.S. innovators and
creators that rely on protection of IP rights.
Of course China comes in for the most criticism, given the
extent of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting and trade
secret theft among other issues. However it is probably correct to
say that the larger the trading relationship the more scrutiny a
country faces, so the final Report doesn't exactly compare like
with like. So China (which is supposed to be the source of 75% of
the world's fake goods) and other large trading partners always
feature. Over the last 20 years most
