Unctad secretary-general Supachai Panitchpakdi initiated the plan to support Thailand in improving standards for suppressing and preventing rights violations, Puangrat Asavapisit, director-general of the Intellec-tual Property Department, said yesterday.

This will boost Thailand's image among foreign countries, he said.

Although Thailand remains on the US Trade Representative's (USTR) watch list of countries that need close monitoring, the country could be upgraded to a higher status if it showed significant suppression plans to reduce both the volume and value of counterfeit goods, he said.

To promote international cooperation in reducing piracy, the Kingdom will soon sign a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia, and another with Australia, to help promote IP awareness and suppress violation in each country.

Malaysia, Vietnam, Colum-bia, Bulgaria, Mexico and Poland are also among the 35 countries on the USTR's watch list, besides Thailand.

About 15 countries are categorised in the USTR's priority watch list, including China, India, Chile, Argentina, Indo-nesia, Brazil and the Philippines.

The USTR included Thailand in its watch list for making limited progress in suppressing IP violations.

The United States remains concerned about the government's policy to prevent and control growth of IP infringement.

Products that received the most complaints of infringement are optical media, medicine, books and copyrighted goods, while the end-user piracy level remains high.

The government has succeeded in reducing piracy by 87 per cent for optical media, Puangrat said, adding that the department will work more closely with companies to tackle the problem of illegal copies.

The department reported 8,895 cases of IP infringement with the police seizing 2.68 million illegal items in the first 11 months of last year.

Of the total cases, 6,057 involved copyright law, 2,829 trade-mark law, five tape and CD law and the rest patent law.

Petchanet Pratruangkrai

The Nation