Honduras still out of USTR Watch List

By Bufete Mejía

The Special 301 Report is an annual review of the state of Intellectual Property protection in United States trading partners around the world. The report expose the laws, policies, and practices of foreign countries that fail to provide adequate and effective IP protection and enforcement for U.S. inventors, creators, brands, manufacturers, and service providers: through a Watch List and a Priority Watch List, it identifies foreign trading partners where IP protection has deteriorated or remained at unacceptable levels.

For a second year in a row Honduras remains out of both lists, a key element for its commerce because, as the report states, "one of the top trade priorities for the Trump Administration is to use all possible sources of leverage to encourage other countries to open their markets to U.S. exports of goods and services, and provide adequate and effective protection and enforcement of U.S. IP rights".

The General Direction of Intellectual Property of the Institute of Property highlighted the achievement and the policies that made it possible, such as strengthening of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Intellectual Property, the Ministry of Health and the National Telecommunications Commission, among others.