The acting director general of Kuwait National Library, Sheikha Rasha Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, on Thursday hailed a decision by a US copyright authority to remove Kuwait from the list of nations where intellectual rights’ supervision is warranted.
Sheikh Rasha said in a statement that Wednesday’s (yesterday’s) decision by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to remove Kuwait from “Watch List” for supervising protection of intellectual rights and its non-inclusion in the 301 report for 2022 constituted “a substantial harvest for the joint efforts by the Kuwaiti State ministries concerned with the file of the intellectual rights.” She expressed gratitude to personnel at the Kuwaiti Copyright Office for exerting noticeable efforts since establishing the division in 2001.
The acting director general of the national library also thanked other state departments that contributed to making the positive record for Kuwait at the property rights’ level, extending her thanks also to “our partners at the American Embassy,” who had closely followed up on this file to pave the way of delisting Kuwait.
On Wednesday (yesterday), it was declared in Washington that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) released its 2022 Special 301 Report on the adequacy and effectiveness of U.S. trading partners’ protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights.
The 2022 Special 301 Report noted that the State of Kuwait has been removed from the Watch List this year for making continued and significant progress on concerns that stakeholders identified with IP enforcement and transparency.
For example, the report of the US agency noted, that the Kuwaiti Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Copyright Office each created online portals for streamlining the submission of trademark and copyright violation reports, respectively. Kuwait also increased engagement and transparency through meetings of the United States-Kuwait Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Intellectual Property Working Group
Source: Kuwait News Agency