April 27 (SeeNews) - The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said it added Bulgaria to its watchlist in its annual review of protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights, because the country did not "sufficiently address deficiencies in its investigation and prosecution of online piracy cases."
Bulgaria showed these deficiencies "by allowing criminal investigations, expert examinations, and prosecutions to proceed with just a subset of seized infringing works," the USTR office said in a statement on Tuesday after publishing its 2023 Special 301 Report on the adequacy and effectiveness of U.S. trading partners’ protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights.
USTR will again conduct an Out-of-Cycle Review of Bulgaria in 2023 to assess whether Bulgaria makes material progress in this area, the trade agency, which is part of the executive office of the US president, said.
The 2023 report presented the agency's findings on more than 100 trading partners, with Belarus also added to the watchlist over a law authorising breach of copyright in response to sanctions levied against it for supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine.