US takes piracy to WTO again

US officials appeared at the WTO yesterday to request a formal crackdown on piracy and intellectual property infringement in China. Sean Spicer, a US Trade delegate spokesman, said that whilst China had "taken tangible steps to improve" its respect for IP, "we still see important gaps that need to be addressed."

China is not, it seems, too worried. It held bilateral talks in June about the issue, but these ended with no agreed outcome. The country, as an existing WTO member, faces far less pressure to deal with the problem than Russia, which was forced by the US to deal with piracy before it could even join the trade body.

The US says that "billions" of dollars are being lost by companies to piracy - although that number assumes that Chinese customers could afford to actually spend the billions of dollars it would cost them to buy legitimate US goods.

Amongst the major 'losers' are tech companies like Microsoft, which sees piracy of Windows and Office on a massive scale in the East. µ

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